Ape Infinitum: "The Eight-Fifteen

"The Eight-Fifteen +

“Your keys,” they say.

“But—” she says.

“Never again, my dear.” It’s a chorus of voices, the women of this town. No men are welcomed, but the wind speaks for them in their absence, cold and precise. “And next your clothes.”

She complies and accepts the replacement gown offered. Sheer, fitting only for a bed, she shudders in the morning cold.

“Is there some significance?” they say, pointing to the tattoo between her breasts.

“There was,” she says, looking down at the faded mosaic of the platform. It depicts a great locomotive locked in battle with a great squid, a great elephant, and a great eagle. The blood on the swords must come from animals not present in the artist’s mind.

“No matter,” they say. “We won’t look, and he’ll never see.”

Into her left hand they press a comb. Into her right, a fork. “Never confuse them,” they say.

She laughs.

“Yes,” they say through their smiles. “It does seem simple enough, but some offenses are beyond forgiveness…even for him.”

She is suddenly weak and doubtful. She leans to place her gifts at her feet, if only for a moment, but they see. “Keep them tightly!” they say, encircling her in fear. “He’ll not forgive.”

Then begins the rumbling. One of the committee whispers, “They say it never ceases to hurt. Be strong…for us. Besides, you’ll never go hungry…and the sights, my dear, such sights to behold.”

“His sights,” she says.

They sigh.

“Never fear,” she says, straightening her stance. “My choice is made. I am confident.”

At the edge of hearing, three whistles blow. At the edge of sight, a cloud of thick smoke grows. The women hasten. “We must not be present,” they say.

“Of course,” she says, clutching her comb so tightly that the feeling is lost in her hand. “The Eight Fifteen approaches.”

“Yes,” they say.

“My ticket,” she says.

“Oh, my!” says one.

“We nearly forgot,” says another.

Fumbling through their things, flustered and red, the ticket is eventually produced.

Distant, she says, “My car—”

“It will be sold, dearest, along with the other things.”

She turns her eyes to the mosaic, to the cold steel and fire, to the beaks and claws and teeth. “It’s dark,” she says, “for eight-o-seven. Too dark to be a morning.”

Descending the station platform along the great stairs, a straggler calls, “It is for you that he blacks the sky. Better this is how you remember the world.”

She is alone. A whistle calls, too near, now, to be a dream. From the sky, near the hole left by the moon, she hears the cries of the wolves and the whales of the outer places, too loud to be pretended as distant and inconsequential things. She studies the rails—how old and by what hands?

Fork. Comb. Each resonating with the approach of a punctual beast, and, despite a desire to fall to her knees and weep, she stands in the stillness, the wind having been the last to flee, and waits.