The Abysmal Biscuit
The awareness of the box's contents dripped slowly in Joelle's mind, coagulating like a graceless Rorschach's blot. Bones. Tiny tapered bones, standing out against the mahogany bottom.
The unusual item jolted on the worn chair, reacting to the vibrations of the old diesel-powered train. The convoy, the last of his lineage, still fulfilled its duty along the Brașov-Sighișoara route allowing students to return to their homes every weekend. To the rhythm of joints and sleepers, the whiteness of the remains continued to dance tremulously before the eyes of the young woman as the frames of her glasses slipped slowly from her nose.
In a tinkling clink of bracelets, the student closed the lid of the box and moved away as far as possible from it, crushing herself against the seat's padding. The lazy air of the air conditioner stuck to the bottom of her dry throat an acrid plastic taste.
And then she saw him. The old passenger had returned and was staring at her through the windows that led from the corridor of the car to the cabin. She listened to her own scream erupting and fill the cramped cab.
"I didn't want to scare you, young lady."
"N-not scared. No worries, sir." Somehow, Joelle managed to gather the few polite words her manners demanded. She could not have said how long he had been watching and if he had seen where curiosity had taken her. The glasses, temples up in the air, laid on the seat beside her.
The old man was tall and lanky, his burnished skin resembled the ancient scales of a dragon. Dressed in work trousers and a raw cotton shirt, he gave the impression of being one of those peasants whose families had inhabited the Carpathians for centuries.
Joelle's gaze passed involuntarily from the man to the funeral urn disguised as a biscuit tin: the representation of a merry-go-round in a lacquered colored wood and graceful workmanship. The children were swirling with their bent busts, perhaps because of the speed of the carousel. Their mouths were wide open and their hands clung to the poles skewering the horses. With a lump in her throat, she remembered the fleeting memory of just a few hours before, when a train was huffing at the central station and a gentle old man asked her help because he couldn't open the cabin door. She felt like something ruined down from her lungs to her guts.
"I see that you like my craft." In the silence, she could detect the old man's fingers caressing the box inlays.
"It's adorable. A gift for a grandchild?" Joelle realized only now that the object was his only baggage. In the warm twilight, the colors of lacquered wood seemed even more lively. The conifers thickened on the sides of the train, sliding quickly to the edges of her field of vision.
"Oh. A gift, says the young lady. Like a toy, perhaps?" The old man's eyes were two black bottomless pits. His gaze had slowly become vitreous like that of a deep-water fish, yet at the same time penetrating.
"Yes, a toy. I like how you see it, miss." The passenger continued, his voice getting thinner.
Only then, Joelle realized where they were heading: the train had just passed the old mill and would soon pass through the tunnels beneath the mountain.
"You may have noticed how I depicted all these children. Observe, miss, between a horse and the other: they are not alone." By pronouncing the last vowel, which he abnormally prolonged, his voice tone had become a slow and drawling rattle.
It was still too early for the wagons' lights to turn on and the tunnels were preparing to swallow the convoy.
A sound of nails carving into the wood tore the thoughts of the young student.
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The Final Journey
As the tunnel engulfed the train, Joelle struggled to stifle another scream. She was suffocating. Felt as though she was engulfed by death and darkness.
The old man wreaked of death. It wasn't his age, but the hollowness of his eyes. She could not bear to be in that dark tunnel, with those empty eyes and the urn, reminding her or what lay at the end of her journey.
Joelle was living under a death sentence. Her cancer had spread. The bones in her hands jutted sharply. Her cheeks, she knew, were hollows that announced to anyone who would see that she was on her final journey.
Many times she had taken this train. It had delivered her to happy weekends, and returned her to school, which she loved. Never again would she sit in this seat, see those distant mountains, anticipate the celebratory meal her mother always prepared.
The old man stared at her in the dim light of the train. The tunnel was long and did not allow daylight to visit.
“Death is not so much to be feared, young lady. I have come today to help you see that. This is a train upon which I travel often, but only as a guide.”
Joelle shrank into her seat.
What was this horror? Her last journey to be scarred by a vicious humor, a cruel joke.
“No, Joelle, not a joke. You once stopped by the road and picked up a tortoise that could not mount a curb. Death for that tortoise was certain. And you paused once, on your way to class. You had but a few coins in your pocket, enough for a meager lunch. But you gave those coins to a beggar who was invisible to everyone else on the path. This kindness earned you a final gift, my guidance to the other side.”
Joelle's horror dissipated. She saw now in the old man's eyes not emptiness but depth. She felt from him an inexpressible kindness. And she felt peace.
The train arrived at her station a short time later. Her mother worried when Joelle did not exit. The conductor looked in her compartment and found her there. She had died sometime during the train's passage through the tunnel.
No one was in the compartment with her, but next her her an urn with the most elaborate scene carved in the side. And though her eyes were closed, there was evident about her a sense of peace. On her lips, a gentle smile and on her hollow cheeks, paradoxically, the slightest hint of color.
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This is my entry into #finishthestory contest, sponsored by @bananafish. Good luck to all those who entered this week!
