The Last Train to Nowhere

Arthur was never quite sure what his goals were in life. They seemed to be a moving target. When he was very young, the daily commuter train which rattled at high speed behind his home held his interest, until he heard the whistle sound one day and put an immediate end to that goal.

When he was older, a teenager, he wanted to become a pilot, but that too was discarded when he was told he had to be good at maths, something he was not. Then later, just before he finished high school and was looking at colleges, he thought of becoming a playwright, something that would be just up his alley, but that too only lasted a short time until he got his A level marks. He was informed that university based on those marks was now a pipe dream.

His parents wanted him to go into the Army but guns never appealed to Arthur, “how about the Air force?” he was asked, but again one needed maths. “What about the navy?” and here his new excuse was he couldn’t swim because he didn’t have webbed feet. And so, Arthur went to work at the local supermarket, but soon was bored with telling people what to buy and what not to buy, and what would go with this sauce and with that sauce and so he left there. ‘I know,’ he said to himself, ‘why didn’t I think of it before! I want to travel the world.’

“The world?” repeated his parents. His brother, Justin, who was a few years younger than him agreed with Arthur that that was a noble pursuit. But Justin had an ulterior motive. He knew that once Arthur left the house, he could move into Arthur’s room because it was far larger than his own and much more lavish. It had a tiny balcony where Arthur would sit and look over the forest which bordered their property. Arthur though was adamant that that was his real calling in life and Justin, who wasn’t old enough yet, offered to take him to the train station.

“Well, I can walk with you,” he replied when his parents and Arthur looked at him as if he had lost his mind.

“Walk?” asked Arthur, “it’s 5 miles away.”

“Oh!” replied Justin trying to cover for himself. “I thought you were going to go through the back gate and catch the goods train when it comes by.”

A light bulb went off in Arthur’s head. He actually thought that that was a great idea. “Ok,” he replied to Justin much to his shock. He hadn’t realised he had come up with a brilliant suggestion, one that changed his brother’s life forever.

His parents cautioned him against doing something rash like that, “plus the train is travelling at high speeds you won’t be able to get on.” Both Justin and Arthur were crestfallen. Then Justin came up with another brilliant idea.

“I can get one of farmer Smith’s cows and push it onto the railway line and then the train would have to stop.” Brilliant again, thought both brothers. Stupid idea thought both parents. But being that they had run out of other suggestions and the parents had failed to convince their eldest son that there were other pursuits in life less dangerous and equally as much fun, they acquiesced.

On Friday night after dinner, Arthur said goodbye to his parents who were truly upset they weren’t able to get their eldest son the start in life he deserved, hugged him together and then peeled off one by one and went to bed.

The next morning Saturday, both parents came downstairs and found they were alone in the house. They began to cry. They sat down on the couch together and began to cry. They were devastated their eldest son was gone, they may never see him again, and then the father went upstairs to Justin’s room to find out if Arthur had caught the last train to nowhere. But his room was empty. They didn’t know what to think.

“So, do you think Justin went off with Arthur?”

“No,” replied the mother, “he still had four years of schooling left and he is definitely the brainiest of our two children, so he is probably ambling home after taking farmer Smith’s cow back to the farm.”

So, they sat down together on the couch and cried some more until the father offered to make coffee. When he stood up and headed into the kitchen, he saw two figures in the field behind the house walking towards them. The longer he stood there, the more he realised that the two figures were in fact his two sons.

“Oh, my goodness!” he shouted, “Martha come here. Our sons have blood all over them. Maybe they were run over by the train!”

Martha dashed into the kitchen and stood next to her horrified husband with her hand over her mouth, watching their two sons walking back towards the house looking as if they had just been through the trenches of World War One. They were stunned and couldn’t move. Eventually, the two boys got to the back door and were about to walk in when the mother shouted, “no, you don’t! Not with blood all over you. You’ll bring that into the house.”

Her husband was shocked by his wife’s proclamation. At least, he thought, she would ask if they needed to do to the Emergency Room. The two sons stopped.

“It’s not my blood, Mummy,” replied Justin, sounding hoarse.

“Then whose? Is it yours Arthur?” she asked to the horror of her husband, who thought at least she could show some concern and speak with passion.

“These are your sons, they must’ve stepped on a land mine.” He needed to take over. He beckoned both sons closer to the window and asked, “what happened?”

The two sons looked at each and then Arthur said, “the train wouldn’t stop.”

“You mean the train wouldn’t stop for the cow?” asked the father not sure whether to cry or laugh.

“Yes dad. The train ran over the cow. I shouted to the engine driver that there was a cow on the tracks, but he didn’t seem to care. He just smiled and waved to us and then splat. The cow was hit at about 70 miles an hour…..”

“More like 80,” interrupted Justin.

Arthur ignored him, “and the cow went flying up in the air and landed on the roof of one of the carriages with a loud moo and then rolled off on to us. That’s why we are covered with blood.”

The father began to laugh and laugh and laugh. “Did farmer Smith see you take one of his cows?”

“No, he didn’t,” replied Arthur, “but what do we do with a dead cow?”

“Nothing!” replied the father, “leave it there and he will think it had wandered on to the tracks by itself.”

And thus ended Arthur’s search for the right job for himself. He began to work for a butcher and eventually owned the most successful butcher shop in Oxford. No one though really understood where he got the name, ‘The Train Stop,’ from and when asked, he just shrugged his shoulders and replied, “I loved steam trains as a child!”