Thread: The Dream Train

A short story I wrote. The metaphors aren't exactly subtle, and the piece revolves around them, so I wasn't sure if it was too much or not.

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I’m having the same dream every night. I first find myself disorientated, before I’m met by a warm, smooth breeze. I’m comfortable. To my left, across a short field is a church, peeling away at the sky with its imposing steeple. To my right is a university, just as far as the church, and the grey walls twist my mind with their dull aura (though the theme fits the bars on the few windows.)

It’s only at that point that I hear a distinctive sound. Straight ahead of me, a large black train is hurtling, threatening to tear apart the ground with its power. Realising I’m on a railway, my mind must trigger some kind of reflex, and suddenly the train moves very, very slowly. At this speed, I have time to admire it. It’s a traditional train, with the head carriage sporting a large black frame and a grille used to scoop things out of its journey. It chills me to think about the things I would find stained on that grill. By itself, the carriage is frightening, but at the speed it's moving it just seems inappropriate.

I hear shouts in the distance. Behind the head carriage is another. It’s brand new, and looks like one of the very modern and impressive carriages of the high-speed trains in France and Japan. It’s shaking restlessly from side to side, and I almost lament for it; this new beast, straight off the lines of the factory, is itching to move forward with all the fuel and ideas it has. But with this dramatically slow warden in front, it can move no faster than it, and is forced to trail and be dragged behind, supressed from being used to its full purpose. The passengers in this modern carriage are shouting at a driver that is either deaf or ignorant of their pleas – though they seem to think he can hear, so perhaps he can, and he is just utterly rude and unhelpful. They urge him to move forward or move aside: “we have places to be, mate! Christ, my kids are getting on this from school – are you gunna take them anywhere or what?”

I turn around. Home is a long way away. That’s when I consider my options: I can get on the groaning carriage and wait for days for the old train to make it to my stop; I can ask for shelter in the intimidating university, or the aggressive church; I can make my walk home.

As I turn around to start the long, lone venture I would make home, I see a man in the corner of my eye. He is wearing blue overalls and is carrying a toolbox. He gives me a sincere smile, before he apologises:

“Sorry about this, my friend. You can get on if you like, but this train’s been running without an operator since it left the station. It can only get so far before it stops – you know? We just wanted to test it out, you see, see if it could move at all without a driver. I could be a while disassembling it, and getting it off the track, then this new model can make its way forward. No, I know what you’re thinking; it doesn’t need a driver – in fact, a driver would slow it down. It works far more efficiently by itself, and it’s pretty happy that way. You making your way on foot? Probably best, I wouldn’t trust those two places either. You’ll probably meet some of the other passengers there, and you can walk back together. None of your options are lonely, friend, but the three blind mice weren’t lonely either, were they? Well, were they?”

I wake with sweat on my shoulders and questions on my mind. A light shines from the hallway, but the bulb is flickering. That’s okay. I like the dark. Life works best at night.

Man, so much content and life in such a compact story.

11/10 man

If there's one thing I want to nit-pick at, it's the following :

"The passengers in this modern carriage are shouting at a driver that is either deaf of arrogantly ignorant of their pleas"

This sentence threw me to the left field a little bit and I ended up reading it a few times before I got the feel for it, particularly the "a driver"

Otherwise, I love the scenery and I love the pseudo-socialistic jabs presented. The closing really tide it all together well and it gave the impression of an individual wanting to escape reality.

For me, it took the story farther than the end and gave me a nice day-dream topic for the day. Great job

Interesting, definitely has the cadence of a dream and that slight un-reality. The word 'de-assembling' should perhaps be 'disassembling'. Otherwise, a wonderfully weird little sequence ^^

Neutrality - Thanks very much! You're right, that sentence is quite off-putting. I think 'of' is a typo, so if changing it to "The passengers in this modern carriage are shouting at a driver that is either deaf or arrogantly ignorant of their pleas" is any better, then I think I'll do that. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Atys - Thanks for picking out that grammatical error. Again, I'm glad you found it interesting and entertaining. Thanks for the feedback!

I found parts of the story unclear.

To my left, across a short field is a church, peeling away at the sky with its imposing steeple.

I like this image of the steeple peeling the sky. Very dream-like. However...

To my right is a university, just as far as the church, and the grey walls twists my mind with its dull aura

First, it should either be "the grey walls twist my mind with their dull aura" or "the grey wall twists my mind with its dull aura." Then you say:

(though they suit the bars on the few windows.)

Though what suits the bar on the windows? The walls? Your mind? It's confusing because I don't know if you intended to make walls singular or plural. It's additionally confusing because you seem to be talking about the bars on the windows suiting your MIND, not the WALL(S). Maybe you could massage that sentence a little so that it's a bit clearer.

It’s only at that point that I hear a very distinctive sound. Straight ahead of me, a large black train is hurtling, threatening to tear apart the very ground with its power. Realising I’m on a railway, my mind must trigger some kind of reflex, and suddenly the train moves very, very slowly.

IMO, you've over-used the word "very" in these three sentences. I'd take out the first two so that the last two will have more impact.

At this speed, I have time to admire it. It’s a traditional train, with the head carriage sporting a large black frame and a grille used to scoop things out of its journey. It chills me to think about the things I would find stained on that grill. By itself, the carriage is frightening, but at the speed its moving it just seems silly and inappropriate.

Should be "at the speed it's moving". Also, the phrase "silly and inappropriate" seems... silly and inappropriate. Maybe something like:

By itself, the carriage is frightening, but the speed it's moving makes it ridiculous.

Or whatever.

It’s shaking restlessly from side to side, and I almost lament for it; this new beast, straight off the lines of the factory, is itching to move forward with all the fuel and ideas it has.

I'm not sure how the modern carriage can have "ideas."

None of your options are lonely, friend, but the three blind mice weren’t lonely either, were they? Well, were they?”

This is extremely interesting, and perfect for a dream setting. I like this bit.

I wake with sweat on my shoulders and questions on my mind. A light shines from the hallway, but the bulb is flickering. That’s okay. I like the dark. Life works best at night.

This too is good; I like the mystery implicit in these lines. I kind of wish it tied in a little bit better with the preceding paragraphs, though.

I'm curious: is this a real dream that you've had? If it is, (or, really, even if it isn't) it seems like you could maybe add some more detail to it to make it all seem even more surreal. Also, it seems a tad wordy in places; if I were you, I'd go through and cut out any and all unnecessary words and phrases to make it tighter.

Anyway, I hope some of this was useful. Thanks for sharing.

Hi Nick,
Thanks for posting this. A fascinating dream.
Usually while I read everyone else's comments I end up saying something completely different. In this case, however, I think Bachelorette said many of the most important things that were on my mind as I was reading. I'll just go back to her last question, about whether this dream was one you really had or not. I feel like it's just strange and disjointed enough to be a real dream... and I think this is the challenge here. In any case, if it's invented, you have a crazy imagination!!
So I'm going to speak as if it's a real dream--the issue is that when you're dreaming it, everything ties together and makes sense, and your own psychology may be the strongest link between the different elements. For this reason (and I suppose this applies if it's your waking imagination that's this quirky too), you may need to help the reader out a little bit more. As you said in your opening comments, there's a strong underlying metaphor here, but I can't quite put it together. Also, the opening paragraph is difficult for me to see... I feel as if I need more help putting things in 3D, placing the speaker, etc. And I also want you to help me interpret what your psychology is doing here. In any case, I need one or the other--either purely visual, very detailed images and sequences, or else some psychlogical framing (sorry to keep using this word) of interpretation.
However, I think I'll keep thinking about the dream and trying to figure out what it means!!
Cheers,
Roughin

Bachelorette - Thank you for the in-depth analysis. I've corrected the errors and the problems you've pointed out, and I thank you for showing them to me. As for your comment on the new train having ideas, I wanted to make it a little more obvious that the train represented something, so when a reader reads that line and wonders how the train could have ideas, I was hoping they would then try to think what the train represents in order to have ideas. I'll clarify my meaning of the piece when I address Roughin's comments. In answer to your question, I've milked the dream, but it is 'based on a true story'. I had a dream of a very slow moving traditional steam-train, which ended up having a new train hit it from behind. I thought this could be a powerful metaphor, and so decided to try to write it down as more of a representation of my feelings on a subject. Thank you again for your comments, I really appreciate the feedback.

Roughin - Thank you for the comments. As I said with Bachelorette, it's based on a real dream, but it's been greatly exaggerated. I'll just go ahead and say what I was hoping to achieve with what the dream represents: the trains are primarily my views on religion (or my views at the time. They've have quite a shift since then). Hopefully that'll help you get a better idea of what I was trying to convey. I wasn't hoping to really give voice to a speaker with the piece; the focus is on the message itself, rather than the narrator. I'll try to make the thoughts in the piece much clearer, because you don't seem to be the only person struggling to find the message. Thank you again for your comments and for highlighting some issues with the writing.

Puts you in the umbra of the dream. I dig. Actually it reminded me of Inception because of the train and the mention of it being a dream. Haha.