Ghost Train

He was listening for it. Waiting. The “Wooooo” of the trains’ whistle. The sound that would announce its presence, its arrival. The sound that would tell him that the ghost train was near.

He first heard it eighty odd years ago, when as a small child he had been told to go to bed well before his normal bed time. His grandfather was living with them back then, staying in the room next to his. He was ill and because of that bedridden, forced to remain in his room. Everyone knew he was dying but no one dared talk about it. Good families didn’t talk about things like that back then. Instead they just carried on as if nothing was happening and waited for the inevitable. Then they would all show up for that final visit, tell him how much they loved him and were going to miss him, and quietly wait for the end.

Today was that day.

“Wooooo.”

That was the night that he first heard it, traveling through the night air, a whistle where there had never been one before. At first, eighty odd years ago, he thought he imagined it; there were no train tracks around. No place for a train to pass.

“Wooooo,” it sounded again.

But there it was. He held his breath and listened.

“Wooooo,” it repeated.

He sprang up, leaped out of bed and rushed to his window. He pushed the curtains aside, offering a cleaner path for the sound to travel. Making it easier for him to hear.

“Wooooo,” it said.

He wasn’t sure, but it sounded a little closer. Sounded a little louder.

“Wooooo,” it repeated.

Why hadn’t he noticed it before? Why, in all the years had he never heard the train’s whistle until tonight?

He thought to ask his dad, but instinctively knew this wasn’t the night to bother him so he returned to bed and quietly listened.

“Wooooo,” the whistle sang to him, coaxing him to sleep.

He woke early the next day, quickly dressed and set out in search of proof that the train existed and wasn’t a dream. His bike took him throughout the neighborhood. Up one street, then down the next, but there were no tracks to be found. No evidence that a train had passed. When he got home his family was waiting. He could see his mom had been crying, her eyes were red and puffy. She’d been up all night. Maybe that’s what he had heard, his mother’s tears and not the whistle of a train. He thought to the night before, then decided that it wasn’t his mom, it was a train. He looked at his father for answers. He too wore the same puffiness around his eyes. He’d also been crying.

“John,” they slowly began.

His mother started to cry again.

“It’s your grandfather,” his father continued. “He died last night.”

He spent the rest of the day with his family and a few days later watched his grandfather buried. He never bothered to ask about the train that he had heard that night, it didn’t seem important anymore.

Years passed before he heard the train again. Years before its melancholy song woke him from a restless sleep. It came in the same way that it had that original night. In the distance at first, barely audible, then slowly, gradually getting louder and louder.

And always singing its same sad song.

A type of requiem for its passengers.

This time he did ask his dad about it. He told him what he had heard, hoping that he’d say that he had heard it too. But he didn’t.

“It must have come from some faraway place,” his father told him. “Carried to your window on the night wind. Much in the same way that at night your radio can find stations that are hundreds of miles away. Night has a funny way of doing things like that, making things sound like they’re near when they really aren’t.”

He then told him that the next door neighbor had died. He had passed away sometime during the night.

His dad had always been right about everything that he had asked him before, but not this time. This time he was wrong. And for a son who loves and looks up to his father that was something hard to admit. The whistle hadn’t been carried on the wind, it was the ghost train that he had heard. And it had come for his neighbor. This he was sure of.

As he grew older the ghost train continued its nocturnal visits. Sometimes it would be months between arrivals. Sometimes years. At one point it even waited a decade and a half before it made its presence known. But it always came back. And when he was old enough to move away it followed him to wherever he went.

It was a sound that he began to look forward to, not because of what it meant, signaling the death of someone he knew, but because of the mystery that always accompanied it. He could hear the train but he could never find it. And that’s what he wanted to do, to find the ghost train.

Every time he’d hear the whistle he would immediately set out in search of the source, no longer bothering to wait until the next morning to begin his hunt. It was a challenge, a quest of sorts. Not for the holy grail, but for the illusive ghost train. He had turned into a cryptozoologist of sorts, but instead of looking for unicorns, or Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster, he was in search of a train that didn’t exist. That’s why he called it the ghost train, not because of any specters that it might carry, but because the train itself didn’t seem to be real. But tonight would be different. Tonight he would finally catch up with it.

He settled back in his bed. It had been a lifelong search that was finally coming to an end. The quest for his grail was near.

His family had been showing up all day. They had carefully been making their way into his room to wish him their best. It had been his turn to move in with his kids. His turn to quietly await the end.

His grandson had been sent to bed early; he wasn’t old enough to be introduced to death yet. It was a play that had been acted out before, but this time it was with different actors. He settled back in his bed and listened.

Through the closed door he could hear the muffled conversation and tears of family members who had come by. But that wasn’t what he was listening for. He readjusted his ears and listened again.

He heard a cat mewing, followed by a dog’s bark.

He heard the night’s breeze coax the autumn leaves from their summer homes and onto the ground below, where it chased them down the street.

He heard a trash can lid as it was lifted, then carelessly placed back down on its metal container.

He heard everything there was to hear, but not what he was listening for.

Everything but what he was hoping for.

He coughed--the type of cough that pierces your chest and pushes its way

out your back. He coughed and held himself tight. Time was growing near.

In the distance he thought he could hear it.

“Wooooo.”

He listened carefully and heard it again.

“Wooooo.”

This is what he was waiting for. The ghost train was near.

His thoughts went to his grandson, sleeping in the next room. He wondered if he’d also heard the train’s whistle? Was he trying to figure out where it was coming from? Where it was going to? Come morning would he set out with hopes of finding it?

“Wooooo,” the train cried.

He envied his grandson. A quest was about to be born while one was about to end.

“Wooooo,” the whistle grew stronger.

There was only one thing that he would need now. He searched his pockets until he found what he was looking for. What would be required if he was to board the train.

He searched them until he found his ticket. He held his ticket and thought about his grandchild one last time. The whole world lay ahead of him. Games, adventure, pain, love and, of course, that special quest.

“Wooooo.”

He smiled one last time, closed his eyes and peacefully went to sleep.