travelling in the night.
Exhaustion grows in the corners
of your compartment
like a tiny desert of spider’s bones.
And you are on a train.
And the night has no end,
no beginning, no meaning.
It is just the black womb
in which you swim.
And you are on a train.And opposite you sits an old man,
a middle-aged woman,
and a small child with a balloon in one hand and a toy train in the other.
And they are on a train too.
And the train goes forward
into the night.
A night in which children cry,
dogs howl,and inconsolable insomniacs
twist and turn
on their bed on doubt and denial.
And you are on a train.
Deny it if you can.
And something is going to happen.
You feel that in your blood
with its red red beat.
Something is going to happen.
But nothing happens.
Nothing.
And out side the window
all is wild
all is waste.
NARR. The woman is conventionally dressed. She clutches her handbag. The child is a little girl. Pig tails. She has the balloon in one hand and the other a bright red toy train. Her face is grey. She has circles under her eyes. The old man is surrounded by a kind of fog. The woman fixes you in her gaze. It is as if she took out her eyes and handed them to you.
WOM. You know the old man smells. I think he may well have shat himself.
NARR. You don’t know how to respond. You cough and look away to the old man but he seems to shift in and out of focus. You blink. For a split second the old man changes in a big spider. All black and hairy. But that doesn’t make sense. You try to focus on his face. It seems familiar. In a thin reedy voice the old man says…
OLD MAN. I was in presses. 30 years in trouser presses. I ran the Dresden branch. 30 years. And now. Now. I can’t even remember what a press looks like.
WOM. (Contemptuous.) It looks like a press! You stupid old arsehole!! (Sniffing. To hero.) Maybe he’s shit himself. As well!
NARR. You feel sorry for the old man and perplexed by the attitude of the conventionally dressed woman who seems rather unconventional. The child begins to whimper.
WOM. Shut up!
NARR. The child carries on whimpering. A poem forms in your mind. Your mind which is a lot like a hospital waiting room.
Whimper whimper
Pimple pimp her
Playing the game
With a double dimple
Brighter dimmer
Damn her praise her
Wampum wanker
Whimple whimper
NARR. This is the poem your mother sang to you in the crib. The crib that rocked you to sleep on an ocean of bliss.
WOM. I used to enjoy masturbating. That is until my cunt dried up. Now it’s like the grand canyon. Just a dry hollow void. (Pause.) Are you a travelling salesman?
HERO. Yes I am.
WOM. In what?
HERO. In pharmaceuticals.
WOM. Pills?
HERO. Yes. (Pause.) In my case I have cures for all ailments.
WOM. (Sceptical.) Cures? Can you cure him? From being a pest?
HERO. Well…I….
WOM. Give him something to get rid of him?
HERO. I don’t think that would be ethical.
WOM. (Angry. Outraged.) Ethical? Ethical? Is ethnic cleansing ethical? (Pause.) Is the Catholic Church, ethical? (Pause.) Is the rhetoric of a cancerous bowel, ethical? And yet we all swim in the same sea. We all piss the same pee, as it were. (Disgust.) Ethical. And tomorrow, when the sun rises, this old shit will be radiating his molecular nonsense, all over the shop, and we, we, will have to put up with it!
OLD MAN. I was gassed in the trenches!
HERO. Yes. But what you are suggesting would be murder.
NARR. You wonder to yourself how the conversation ever came round to murder as the child whimpers quietly.
WOM. Not exactly murder. Let’s not over editorialise. More a common sense solution to an intolerable problem. What does it say in the Bible? “ Be that in ye that ye would for angels and devils something something in Judea, with a donkey.”
HERO. Are you sure it says that?
WOM. Quite sure.
NARR. Now there comes a quite resounding silence. The child has quietened down a bit. Only the rhythmic pounding of the train as it travels through the long dark night towards its inevitable destination. However this silence is not pure. It is infected with a murderous strain of guilt. Like a red virus. Guilt. Percolating through the silence and oppressing it with its heavy vibration.
OLD MAN. One day at the Dresden branch a man came in. A tall man. He wanted a press. (Correcting himself.) To press his trousers. We made him fill in an application. Turned out, he wasn’t affiliated! We took him in the back room. Read poetry to him. Stroked his temples. Next week, just around lunch time, he threw himself in the Danube. (Pause.) That’s a river.
WOM. See what I mean?????
NARR. You hear a noise and look up. In the corridor lots of people are milling past the door. They look excited. Some of them are drooling. The woman pulls down the window.
WOM. What is it?
NARR. A man who looks a lot like Franz Kafka stops. He pants.
MAN. There’s going to be some kind of a performance in the last carriage!
WOM. What kind of performance?
MAN. Something to do with the tabernacle and a yard of floss.
WOM. Floss?
MAN. Yes.
NARR. You wonder what kind of performance could involve floss and a Tabernacle.
WOM. (Dismissively.) It’s probably some kind of student rag.
OLD MAN. You won’t catch me in the last carriage. It’s like the Last Judgement or the last bus. I don’t like endings.
GIRL. Oh. I’d like to go! (Pause.) They might be torturing someone and I’d like to see that. Will you come with me?
NARR. Me? I…I… why me?
GIRL. Oh please.
NARR. Everyone is looking at you. A certain social pressure being exerted in your direction to do the right thing. Be a responsible member of society. Pull your weight. And yet deep inside you have misgivings. Grave misgivings. Which you really should express now saying, ‘No! I don’t wish to be involved with a heartless and self-interested little girl, who quite frankly, fills me with repulsion! Count me out!’ (Pause.) But you don’t. You remain silent. Silent as the grave. Then you stand and take the little girl’s hand. (Pause.) Above the carriage in the black night void hangs the moon which seems to leer down on the puny mortals below caught in it’s ever changing tides.
OLD MAN. Go on then. I’ll be dead soon anyway.
WOM. Yes. Run along now and have your fun.
FAT W. Who did that!
NARR. Exclaims a fat rather plain woman.
FAT W. Someone touched me inappropriately. Who was it?
NARR. She turns round with difficulty and still edging forwards stroke backwards stares in the faces of the people behind her accusingly.
FAT W. Who?
The men avert their gaze and bite their lower lips.
FAT W. Who? I shan’t ask again?
NARR. No response. None whatsoever.
HERO. ‘Perhaps no one did. Perhaps it was an accident?’ you volunteer.
FAT W. Oh yes you’d like people to believe that wouldn’t you?
That I’m not a victim of male harassment. That my role as a woman and a mother doesn’t deserve, nay, demand respect! Yes. You’d love that wouldn’t you? I suppose, ideally, you’d throw me in the local duck pond and then burn me as a witch! Ideally? Wouldn’t you?!
NARR. You realise in a moment of profound understanding that the woman, is stupid. And it is pointless to reason with her. So you say,
HERO. ‘Yes. Yes. That is exactly what I would like as a superior male oppressor. To burn you as a witch!’
FAT W. So it was you who touched me!
HERO. I was being ironic!
FAT W. Here he is! The man who molested me! I demand justice!
NARR. Reluctantly the passengers take hold of you and pull you into an empty compartment.
HERO ‘This is ridiculous!’
NARR. They sit you down and stand over you.
P1. Why did you touch this woman inappropriately?
NARR. I didn’t.
FAT W. He admitted it!
NARR. I did not admit it!
P2. Confess your guilt now!
NARR. Said a Grunvaldesque man in a bobble hat.
P2. And we will let you off!
HERO. Let me off? But I’m not guilty! (Pause.)
NARR. Stalemate. The passengers hold a brief parley. After which one opens the carriage window and then the others pick you up, and bodily thrust your upper body out of the window! HERO. ‘Help! Stop it! Help!’
NARR. You can see the ground rushing past, illuminated by the moon and taste and smell the smoke and cinders from the great roaring beast of an engine, which labours so heroically to pull the long series of carriages.
P1. Confess!
P2. Out with it!
P1. Or we will let go.
P2. Be sure of that.
P1. We’ve done worse things.
P2. Yeah. Much worse.
NARR. You realise they do mean business. In the mechanical ant colony which they laughing call ‘consciousness’, this is the recognised procedure in such a situation. Ridiculous as it is. After a brief inner struggle you say…
HERO. Yes. I confess. It was me who touched her inappropriately.
NARR. It is as if a huge electric current has been suddenly switched off. You are pulled out and sat down. Everyone mills back into the corridor.
FAT W. Beast!
NARR. Says the fat woman and exits herself. You need a moment to recover. The little girl enters.
GIRL. What are you doing here? I thought we were going to see the performance? Come on.
NARR. She takes your hand and drags you out into the corridor. The throng has passed. You glance up at the moon as she drags you forward.
GIRL. I wonder if it will be extra sickening. The performance I mean. I like it when it’s extra sickening. I saw one on a school trip. Ms Hargreaves took us. She’s the soppy art teacher. She goes on and on about Van Gough’s soul. It’s like. You know. Duh. I mean. Duh. What’s Van Gough’s soul got to do with anything?
NARR. You glance up at the moon again. Framed in a window.
GIRL. But what would be really like cool would be if it involved scorpions and knives and rubber tubing! My friend Cheryl, her Dad, he had like miles and miles of rubber tubing, in his garage.
NARR. What was it for?
GIRL. She didn’t say.
NARR. You glance up to look at the moon again, but this time it’s obscured by clouds. The other passengers are crowded into the guard’s Van. It seems impossible to get so many people in there. They are evidently watching something judging by their expressions. You strain your neck to see what is taking place but your view is obstructed by 3 very tall people in front of you. You can hear though. Sawing noise. Gasps. The sound of snapping twigs. Animal yelps. You immediately think it must be some kind of sex show. The little girl’s beside herself.
GIRL. Lift me up! I want to see! Now! Now!
NARR. You obligingly lift the little girl with pig tails onto your shoulders and stand there patiently. You feel bored. The little girl becomes silent. Quite absorbed in the performance. You struggle to hear what the performers are saying.
PERFS. & he takes the … … ing. & places it so. (Dog bark.) Oh mighty … … itzer! (Stick snap.) Hear our … … (Loud inhuman gasp!) ladies & Gentlemen. The … … as in accordance with … (Cow’s moo.) of minute particles …. … (and as you can see, the insertion fits … … (Sawing of timber.) … …
RUDOLF STASZ. Fascinating isn’t it?
HERO. What?
RUDOLF STASZ. These…performances.
HERO. (Bored.) Yes.
RUDOLF STASZ. You want to look?
HERO. Oh yes.
NARR. He hands you a strange periscope type contraption. Shows you how to work it. You put down the little girl who complains loudly and put it to you eye. At the back end of the van two people sit motionless at a table starring into each other’s eyes. One is wearing a fur coat. The other a dinner jacket. On the table between them is a large melon. It doesn’t make any sense to you. You thank him and hand it back.
HERO. But what’s it all about?
NARR. The little girl tugs your sleeve and you pick her back up again.
MR T. Well. What we are witnessing is a post-modern folk ritual. Something you will only ever see in the more obscure and backward parts of Europe. You should read the paper I wrote for the anthropological times last June.
NARR. You’re amazed.
HERO. You’re not Rudolf Stasz are you?
RUD. The very same.
HERO. Well I never!!!! I read your paper with great interest. But I had no idea the practice was still current?
RUD. Myself neither. Until a colleague of mine at the Polytechnic tipped me off as the possibility that it might be happening on this very night train to nowhere and so here I am.
HERO. Well. It’s only pure fortuitous chance which brings me here.
RUD. Ah. A stupid mechanical coincidence?
HERO. Yes.
NARR. You say. Not sure if you entirely agree with him. He seems to intuit your disagreement and carries on in a rather supercilious manner.
RUD. I daresay you’re one of these new age synchronicity johnnies, extolling the hidden agenda and implicate order behind the mechanistic and predictable façade of our strange and beautiful universe, but as far as I am concerned, this is the biggest form of mass insanity we, homo ‘perfectus’, have yet to come up with. I mean. The I-Ching was copied from the back of a tortoise! How scientific is that?! And the Mayan calendar went backwards!!! No. What we need are facts. Cold hard facts. And if people can’t deal with that, well, Hitler had a few good ideas in that connection. First discrimination. Then segregation. Then…annihilation! Extermination! I mean, what are they but vile loathsome vermin fit, only to be crushed mercilessly under the princely jackboot of progress. Science. Enlightenment!
NARR. (Ironic.) Fantastic. (Normal.) Can this really be the same intelligent educated man who wrote such an excellent monograph full of insight and academic excellence? You think. Can it? Impossible?
HERO. Surely you are joking?
RUD. No. I am perfectly serious. Extremely serious. It’s the only logical answer.
HERO. Well. In that case then…
NARR. You say. Full of moral hauteur and high grandiose indignation…
HERO. We shall have to part company. I cannot be party to bigotry and white supremacy! I. ‘I’. Have …errr ….
NARR. You struggle for the right word or words…
HERO. Standards!
RUD. Of course you do.
NARR. He stares silently at you, his face taking on an evil aspect in the half-light.
RUD. Standards.
HERO. (Uneasy.) Standards.
NARR. You walk back to your compartment feeling a trifle lonely and unsettled. What is this madness that passes for life? Why is no one aware that it is simply that? Madness? It’s like a crazy dream. You think.
GIRL. What is?
NARR. She has somehow read your thoughts.
HERO. Life.
GIRL. (Considering.) Yes. But it’s more like a nightmare than a dream. One full of pain and gory but signifying nothing.
HERO. And where did you learn that from?
GIRL. Oh. Like DUH. I didn’t learned it! I made it up. It’s like too boring to have to learned stuff. I always make it up. Puke.
NARR. When you get back to your compartment the old man is bowed down on the floor in front of the conventional woman who is looking away a disdainful expression on her face. The old man is muttering to himself.
OLD MAN. Where all rivers run. Where all waters flow. In the ageless age, where naught comes not, and all is ripe. Spurn me Oh Goddess mine! Reject me! Show me thy savage quim! And barren womb oh Goddess…
NARR. He stops sensing your prescence. You feel perplexed. The little girl jumps on the old man’s back and begins riding him. The old man groans.
GIRL. Giddy up! Giddy up! Fatal gee-gee!
HERO. What is the old man doing?
WOM. Does it matter?
HERO. Yes! Of course it matters! How could it not matter?
NARR. Her attitude infuriates you.
HERO. He is humiliating himself!
NARR. You drag the little girl off.
GIRL. Oh! Like I was enjoying that!
HERO. I don’t care!
NARR. The little girl sits rather sulkily.
GIRL. Like you shouldn’t have done that. My Dad is … My Dad…
HERO. I’m not interested !!!
GIRL. He is though. He’ll do for you.
NARR. She makes an evil face. You ignore her. The conventionally dressed woman stands.
WOM. I think I shall go to the buffet car. I am in need of a beverage.
HERO. You are going nowhere. I demand an explanation!
NARR. You are surprised at your own vehemence. It is as if some demon/spirit/elemental had possessed you.
WOM. Demand? Demand? I don’t think you are in any position to demand anything?
NARR. You begin to help the old man up.
OLD MAN. Thank you. Thank you. I’m old. I was in presses. Shirts. Trousers. Overalls. We did good business. (Thinks.) Before the purge.
HERO. Perhaps demand is a little strong.
NARR. You relent.
HERO. I should appreciate, that’s it, I should appreciate an explanation, we’re on forthcoming.
WOM. Well, I’m sorry…
NARR. She says.
WOM. (Mocking.) Most terribly sorry, but there will be no explanations and you can eat shit!
NARR. And with that she exits the compartment, in search, presumably, of a beverage. You help the old man to sit. Adjust his coat which has come awry. At that precise moment a violent explosion rocks the carriage. The sound has a deep manacing ‘end of the world’ feel to it. You react completely instinctively hurling yourself to the floor and crouching there like some kind of feral animal. Your mind for once a complete blank. Total silence. Then a baby crying. A crow cawing. A dog barking. A buzzing noise that you struggle to place but can’t. then you realise. It is your mobile!
HERO. Hello?
FRIEND. Hi. It’s me. How are you?
HERO. Well actually I’ve just been blown up!
F. You never have?
HERO. I have. It’s the honest to God truth.
NARR. You fill your friend in and ring off. The old man is holding his head. The little girl is leaning out the space where the window glass used to be.
GIRL. Wow. That was like really cool. I wonder if there will be another one?
OLD MAN. It was like this in the war. The big war. Only then they’d send you a letter first informing you politely that you would be blowed up.
GIRL. Blown up.
NARR. Corrects the little girl punctiliously. A cold wind blows in through the window.
HERO. Better put our coats on.
NARR. Coats are pulled down off the rack and donned. You notice that strangely there is no glass on the compartment floor. Somehow the glass must have flown outwards. Then the train comes to a grinding shuddering halt. Great clouds of steam issuing from the engine which stands like some giant prehistoric beast in the moonlight. You can see that the train is in some kind of siding.
OLD MAN. Why have we stopped?
NARR. The little girl considers puckering her brows.
GIRL. To remove the dead and the mutilated, dump them in a ditch somewhere, so we can get moving again?
NARR. The old man sighs.
OLD mAN. I was on a train during the purge. That was when I was in the trouser pressing game. Have I told you that?
NARR. He breaks off distracted.
HERO. And did that train stop?
OLD MAN. No. There was no stopping in those days. Not during the purge.
NARR. You sit down next to him. suddenly you feel terrible tired and depressed. An old music hall song creeps into your mind like a tramp creeping secretly into a huge expensive and posh wedding reception.
O moon of fate
This is our curse
We branded sinners
Here below.
O Godless moon
We curse your ebb
These giddy shores
Are all we have.
The conventionally dressed woman is suddenly standing in the compartment doorway. She looks exasperated.
WOM. I’m exsasperated!
NARR. She says.
WOM. Do you realise they have shut the buffet car because of some silly explosion. Really the standard of service on Rainbow trains is quite appalling.
NARR. You are shocked and amazed. You cannot believe you ears.
WOM. I’m considering writing a stiff letter to that fellow who runs it. The one in those tasteless adverts. What’s his name? Richard B … Richard B…????
NARR. At last you erupt. From deep down in the lost depths of your karmic self erupts the molten magma of your bitter twisted soul.
HERO. You moronic cow! You pile of genteel shit! You right-thinking robot! Don’t you know a bomb has gone off? People are hurt! People are suffering, you carboard excuse for a human being! Get real!!! Fer Kristsakes!!! Wake up and smell the ozone boyzone shit storm!!!
NARR. You grab her and violently shake her.
HERO. Hello? Come in number 37 acacia avenue! Your time is up! You’ve had your middle class nasturtium growing earl grey tea drinking nazi medical fucking experiment approving chips!!! Now you will have to find that small withered grey golem like soul and yours and give it a kick start! Up it’s metaphorical ass. Kick start it back into life! Clean off all those fucking layers of prejudice, ignorance, complacent acceptance, arrogant self aggrandismnent and be fucking human for once you turd eating wordless mother of an offal’s spawn!!!!
NARR. The you lose it completely.
HERO. What?
NARR. You lose it completely.
HERO. Do you realise that is was you who caused the black fucking plague? The inquisition. The slave trade!!! YOU!!!
Extermination is too good for you! I hope you rot in an eternity of hell!!!
NARR. There is a deathly silence. You realise the ending was a bit weak. The conventional woman sits down adjusting her clothes. She clears her throat.
WOM. Of course there really is no excuse for service of this kind. Not when my father and his father all fought and died in a greasy germ infested foreign country to make the British Empire, and I use the word advisedly, what it is today. No excuse whatsoever.
GIRL. She like, does have a point.
OLD MAN. That’s what we died for. In droves. Like chloroformed cattle.
GIRL. Like you know the trains are like…you know, really rubbish. We all know that.
OLD MAN. I don’t like trains. They remind me of the trouser press shop. All dark, and full of trousers.
