The Blackberry Walk

Chapter 7 I will confess, the pull towards comfort was certainly appealing. The humdrum so horrid, the humdrum shown to me in the temple, is at once dull and grey whilst also being comforting. It’s like a dirty pair of tracky bottoms you’ve worn for days: it takes on your scent and somehow the fabric feels more comfortable than a fresh pair. It is the feeling of home, the magnetic pull we all have towards home, like the homing pigeon, or like Odysseus. We all want to go home, get under a blanket on the sofa, and relax with your vice of choice - mine being YouTube. Endless videos, the same old muck. You might learn a little here and there, but any pretense of learning is but a shield to defend my pride from the truth, that I’m merely squandering my precious hours on this Earth. Rejecting the comfort of the hearth is hard. Some stay at home their whole lives, seeing nothing, achieving nothing, experiencing nothing, only because the hearth is so warm, and the coolness without it is so cold; and without the hearth’s light all is dark, the hazy shadows in the darkness forming into imaginary monsters. The thing is, the thing which has taken me too many years to realise, is that those imaginary monsters which appear in the shadows away from the hearth in the darkness are monsters to be slain by the Excalibur held within each man’s heart. Like St. George, we are tasked to slay dragons, and dragons we must slay if we aren’t to remain spiritually children. I don’t want to be weak. I don’t want to be naive. I don’t want to hunker down in the Shire, never venturing out. I don’t, I don’t, I don’t. I don’t want that at all. I was born for adventure; I was born to make something of myself, forge my steel, and earn my spurs. The fear of the unknown may be great, but the fear I have of eternal comfort is far greater. From dust we were made, and to dust we will return: then how are we to spend this interim? The answer was clear yet agonising. The human body, the flesh of man, wants little more than comfort. Deciding to continue on with the journey to The Firmament, and attempting to tell the conductor that I wished to continue, was challenging. All the alerts and warning lights and sirens were blaring, as if it were a sci-fi series, and our spaceship had just been hit. Turning to the conductor, I attempted to open my mouth. This time, it felt as if my every muscle and thought were pulled back by an unholy mixture of natto and treacle, sticking and restraining my every movement. But by sheer force of will, I managed to break free of these bonds. “I want to travel on, to the Firmament.” To this the conductor smiled. He seemed pleased with my choice. The conductor then signalled over to the she-conductor and waved her off, before boarding me onto his train. He smiled at me again. “Sir, welcome aboard,” and then his warm smile turned a little diabolical, “you must be hungry,” he said, holding back a giggle. I winced my eyes at him disapprovingly, but I was indeed hungry. Never had I felt so hungry in fact. It wasn’t merely the wish to eat food, as hunger mediated by our biological cron-jobs so often are, but real, true hunger, hunger where you aren’t only compelled to eat, but where one feels a true emptiness in the belly begging to be filled. With me, the day I set off for work, I had brought a tuppa of cooked tortelloni; and that tuppa has been sitting in my work backpack on the train now for three days. If the thought of eating the tortelloni cold wasn’t enough of a put-off, the thought of eating them cold and old was far worse. The conductor read my face like a book. “I see you worrying, sir. Please relax. This isn’t a short domestic route, after all, this train travels off to The Firmament, we have food on board, sir.” What a relief. “Where then is this food?” A smug smile came over his face. “Sir, come right this way.” And with that, the conductor walked me through several of the car doors, off to the last car of the train; and, lo and behold, there it was, a dining car with plates and cutlery of fine silver, the walls all done up in EMR purple. “This.. this is magnificent!” I spoke dumbfounded, gazing at the decor and then the platters. “The dining car connects with our train here at the moon, sir. Previously, the dining car was on the train coming in the other direction, and now it’s joined to our train. It’s quite a challenge, sir, to source...” Each word the conductor spoke subsequently about the logistics of the dining car was like a drone, drowned out by the figurative drop of drool beginning to figuratively fall down my chin. I gazed upon the silver platters lined with meat, veg, carb, and all in-between. I could hardly shake my focus. And then there were the metal cloches, those dome-shaped metal serving lids concealing the food below - what could possibly be under those? My mind was wild with theories. “Is this a buffet?” I asked, not able to turn my attention to face the conductor whilst speaking. Seeming to giggle a little to himself, he replied with the affirmative. This time, I was not at all offended by his chortling. I was so locked-in on shiny silverware, nothing else mattered - not even where on earth (or not on Earth) all this food came from. Such thoughts were irrelevant. And, like an F1 driver on the starting line who had just seen the green light, I was off out the gates, shovelling food onto my plate, and then into my mouth. Chapter 8 After this orgy of appetite, I lay across two of the seats, nursing my sore tummy. Finding me there, prone, the conductor walked over. “Are you full, sir, there’s plenty more if you’re still hungry.” I didn’t appreciate the sarcasm, though my mind was so woolly that I hadn’t the mental focus to so much as formulate a retort let alone deliver one. “I’m good thank you,” I replied. Looking out the window, I saw once more the black ocean, the cosmos glowing with the many stars of the night sky. We had taken off from the Moon’s surface while I was eating, and had now been travelling for some hours. “Sir... Sir!” I snapped back to attention. “Sir, I am telling you important information, please pay attention to me sir.” “Sorry, could you tell me that again?” The conductor sighed. “The next stop is Mercury, sir. And at-” “Mercury?! Why Mercury, wouldn’t the next stop be Venus or Mars or something like that?” At what was I think quite a rational and sane interjection, the conductor gave me such piteous eyes. “Sir, sir, enough with the science sir. You’ve visited the moon now, correct? How did that compare with the science experiments, the telescopes, and the astronauts from that so-called ‘space agency’? Hm, sir?” Point taken. It certainly was different. “Sir, please trust me. I make this route regularly, it’s my job, sir. So if I say the next station is Mercury, the next station is Mercury. Understood sir?” His explanation needn’t have sounded so irritated, but I understood him and nodded. He must get these questions a lot from other passengers kidnapped into space. And that reminded me. “Those other passengers who were in my car... where are they now, they’re not here anymore. You know, there was a lady in red, and a man wearing a bowler hat...” “Oh them,” the conductor said with an unnecessary air of contempt, “they were sent back on the Earth-bound journey, no need to worry about them, sir.” What a slick little system they had going here. “As I was saying sir,” the conductor continued, still irritated by the interruption it seemed, “on Mercury” - he put a special emphasis on the word Mercury - this was unnecessary, surely? - “we have a request for you. We have a parcel on this train to deliver, and we would appreciate it if you could deliver it, sir.” What a curious request. It’s unusual to ask a passenger for an errand, so I decided to have some fun with it. I reclined into my chair, and folded my arms and legs. “A parcel? Can’t you deliver it yourself, I’m a passenger after all?” Now, I was fully expected the conductor to respond with outrage, or at least irritation, at this bait I set. Of course, I didn’t mind delivering the parcel. Mercury is no doubt as hospitable as the Moon, and I would like a look around. But the conductor shrank slightly, his black flames dwindling, and he looked to the ground. “Sir..” he began in a mournful tone, twiddling his fiery thumbs. “Sir, there’s something I need to tell you. I’m afraid sir, I’m unable to stray too far from this train.” Hearing the conductor speak so ashamedly, I felt quite bad for my comment now. “Oh.. I see.” I couldn’t find the words of consolation. There was a long pause as my mind’s cogs cranked and I searched for the right words. I hate these kinds of conversations, they’re impossible. “How come?” Gah, I blew it! Who just asks ‘how come’, what a callous thing to say! What’s wrong with me! I began to feel that internal pressure and shame that comes with making a faux pas and breaching social convention; the autism alarm, as I call it. At my indiscretion, the conductor did look a little wounded, and turned his head away. Then, he turned back to face me, looked as if he as about to say something, only turn his head away again after presumably deciding against it. “I would rather not say, sir,” is all I received. Another pregnant pause. The conductor was my only companion on this journey, what am I doing turning him against me? Where am I without him, just drifting in space with no way home? I’ve chosen the path of adventure: I shouldn’t anger the guide. I strained some sort of smile. “What’s Mercury like, then?” I asked, trying to change the conversation. To this the conductor turned and did give me his attention, but wasn’t awfully interested in answering. “It’s not like what you think, NASA boy. There’s quite a lot of life on Mercury... all of it metal though...” He trailed off here, his mind still somewhere else, likely spiralling. I decided not to pursue this line of questioning any further. “Ah, we were talking about the parcel. I’d be more than happy to deliver your parcel. It gives me a good excuse to explore Mercury for a bit.” At this, there was a little more life in the conductor’s flames. “Ah good, I’m glad to hear it sir.” His hit points as a professional seemed to be recovering. “I’ll tell you a little about the task, then sir. You’ll be delivering a parcel to Miss Böhme who lives in the woodlands on Mercury. I’ll give you a map to direct you to her house, and we’ll even provide you with a packed lunch, sir. It may be a longer journey, maybe three hours or so by foot?” “That sounds excellent, I enjoy a good hike.” The conductor looked pleasantly encouraged. “And once you’re at Miss Böhme’s house, do ask her to ring the station, just so we know you’ve arrived there safely.” “Of course, that’s all fine by me.” In truth, I’d agree to anything at this point to assuage the guilt. And telephone’s on Mercury, eh? By this point, nothing surprises me. Though one aspect of the plan did intrigue me. “This Miss Böhme, she’s a person, right? I’ll be able to speak to her normally, unlike the children I met on Mercury.” The conductor seemed to ponder this question ever-so-slightly too long. “Yes.. she’s a lovely person, I’ve met her a few times before. She lives alone in the woodland, sir.” Something was clearly up, but I felt it fruitless to press the point. “Ah,” the conductor rushed to his feet, “one moment please, sir.” And away he dashed. Then over the tannoy, I heard his voice. “Ahem. Our next stop will be Mercury.”