I boarded the train in Winnipeg

I boarded the train in Winnipeg

I boarded the train in Winnipeg, the station there being more of a foul-smelling ulcer than a geographic location. I flew out of the north this morning in rickety twin engine piloted by an ex-RAF pilot that had retreated from what he calls “the world” some 45 years ago. Its funny how certain details stay with you and call out the oddest associations. As soon as he had said 45 years, I couldn’t get the Stan Rogers tune of the same name out of my head. It’s become a white noise that plays sound track to this surreal script I seemed to be caste in.

The grinding bustle of this city’s version of skid row, where the train station stews in its own rancid rot, is a strange mix of culture shock and unarticulated familiarity. The noise and the crush of people assault my senses in a way that the isolation of the last few months left me unprepared to deal with. I am gradually becoming aware that I’m displaced in the “south”, that I went more “bush” than I realized and that I’m standing in the middle of a swarm, feeling as though the top layer of my skin has been peeled away. Every nerve ending seems kinetic. I hear every muted sound as a clatter of gnashing decibels competing to be the most vulgar of the melee, smell every wafting scent as a noxious blast of sulphur and rotting egg salad, feel every jabbing breeze as someone passes me like the stinging tentacles of an erratically dancing jellyfish.

Although I remember everything, my memories of the last few months are like the replayed reels of an old movie, scenes blinking fitfully into focus and then the reels coming off the sprockets and slapping the sides of the aluminum projector trying to reassert themselves into place. They are my memories but somehow I feel like I have amnesia and have only borrowed these thoughts so that my mind would not be a yawning, charcoal abyss trying to swallow me.

I pick my way through the grit and animated bodies that plug the little station full, juggling my backpack and a couple of duffle bags with the all the practiced grace of a drunken soccer fan. Finally standing at the wicket, I fumble for my wallet and feel strangely embarrassed that I had in my back pocket, the way a man would carry it. Somehow, in the city, this simple convenience makes me feel oddly unfeminine and I wonder if the disinterested clerk at the counter thinks I’m a dyke. Paying for the ticket, I realize that the stoned bum that was standing behind me just tried to cop a feel. Normally I’d turn around and blast him but in this peculiar instance I decide to treat it as a reaffirmation of my preferred sexual preference. I turn to face him and have to stifle a giggle as he sways, bracing himself against what I know he thinks will be a stream of blue language. All I do is smile, wink, and walk away.

Taking my place in the line up to board, I feel disembodied, my head on a swivel trying to force the cacophony of sensory stimulation into some semblance of order that I can grapple with. The voice of the conductor punching tickets up ahead drums a dull, primitive beat into my throbbing brain and I start seeing the images on the periphery of my vision like the distorted shapes of a Salvidore Dali painting. I realize I lost myself in the north. The girl that went in froze in the tundra, and the last vestiges of her seeped away with the spring melt. This shell I keep mobile is a disoriented husk with mechanical thoughts and preprogrammed emotions, loosely appropriate to the situation.

I actually like this dissociative numbness. Suddenly the world seems more in perspective than it’s ever been and it’s pleasingly comedic. Everyone I see is a character conjured by Ma and Pa Kettle, animated by Abbott and Costello, and predestined by the Three Stooges. As the conductor waves me, and all my baggage (now isn’t the a Freudian statement!), aboard, I am almost giddy with the humour I see in it all.

In this fog, or maybe it’s a peculiar state of grace, I drift down the narrow, cluttered aisle of the train car. My backpack is thumping the top of each seat as I pass and the impact of it rattles in my spine like a persistent tickle. I have to squint and crane my neck to see around the bobbing heads of irritated passengers also trying to find their designated spot in the next few hours of life. In so doing, I’m not paying attention to the path directly in front of me and suddenly I am smacked by a long, stiff phallus of a cardboard box, in much the same way cartoon characters get smacked in the face when they step on a rake. This, too, strikes me as both funny and ironic, and I stagger back, a little dazed, and rubbing my nose against the sting. The tall box that assaulted me is teetering precariously in the center of the aisle and a young man, not older much than myself, is nervously apologizing as his face turns a deep purple.

As I am watching his lips move I realize that the din of noise in the car has ceased. All the inquisitive eyes that only moments before did not distinguish me from any other of the fleshy mammals in this confined space, have turned and are staring expectantly. Time momentarily freezes as I step to the side in my mind to get a panoramic view of the whole scenario. The young man is actually babbling now, trying to explain why he’s responsible for this obstruction, nervously driveling information as the fierce gaze of these strangers effect him like an interrogator’s klieg light. The air in the car seems to have liquefied and I consider his movements, and the warbled sound of his voice, as though I was listening through a thick flood of cooking oil. The wobbling in the image steadies and I shake my head realizing that several seconds have passed and I still haven’t responded. I lift my hand to his forearm where his hand rests on the box, and smile.

‘It’s ok, really! Don’t worry about it.” is all my tongue could form. In my mind I am screaming, “What’s in the box?” but I suddenly feel too shy to ask.

Just over his shoulder I see the seat number, and mentally comparing it to my ticket, I point to the window seat: “Do you prefer the window or the aisle?”

The burning flush drains from his face and he is visibly calmed, still talking too fast though, and moving a bit too jerkingly.

“I like the window, if you don’t mind” he offers and I hear the disinterested murmur of a car full of people turning back to their own concerns, disappointed that they’d stopped for a show that never materialized.

“I really don’t mind.” I assure him and find myself holding the damned box while he tries to stuff a half dozen plastic grocery bags, filled to the point of bursting, under both our seats. The weight of my backpack insinuates its heft on my shoulders, and I remember that I still don’t have anywhere to stow my things. I start scanning the still-open overhead compartments for a few unclaimed inches of space. I heave the backpack up into an impossibly small spot and decide to just adopt the Zen view of my duffle bags as portable footstools. We still have this awkward box to contend with, though, and there was no way it is going to fit in the shortened clearance between our seats and the overhead compartment.

“What do with so with this,” I clear my throat and venture the question for which I truly didn’t care what the answer is.

All of a sudden the young man bounces up on the seat and pulls the packing tape away from the top of the box. Again I feet all the eyes within the train rivet on our strange little duet as he stretches one arm down into the mouth of the box. In a singular, sweeping motion, he pulls something up, too quickly for it to register as a specific object in my mind. All that really catches my attention is the sharp glint of flashing light as the elongated thing passes under the florescent lights of the center aisle. That … and the collective, gasping heave that lurches from the other passengers.

My eyes focus and I realize I am staring at my own reflection, beaming back from the unmarred silver face of a medieval sword.

Now it’s at times like these that the oddest thoughts pop into my head. At this exact moment, all I can think is “I need a new bra... this one pinches.” My seat mate continues brandishing a sword, which, vaguely, I hear him explaining is an exact replica of a sword carried by 14th century knights in the south of England. For me, time slips into slow motion, his voice drawling as the stinted voices of excited train staff surged like great waves of molasses from both ends of the car. I feel a laugh boiling deep inside of me, welling up like a pyroclastic flow as it breaks the surface of my lips. I try to contain it but the whole scene is just too silly. I am bent over in gales of laughter as hands grab for my historic, psychotic traveling companion and others tug me away from the still-animated sword. This whole time all I can think of is that damned bra, wondering if the strap is tough enough to hold together through this earthquake of laughter, contorting my chest and strangling my breath.

Somehow all the commotion dies down. I watch like a ghost from a few feet away as they confer with our swordsman. It seems apropos that they not only decide he is sane enough to remain on this train of fools, but they let him keep the sword. As the conductor beckons me back to my seat, I looked around at the sea of faces in the car. Already most have gone vacant, their eyes glazed as they read listlessly, or stare out the windows of the still-stationary train, memorizing the pockmarks in the stale concrete of the station walls. The rush of excitement only minutes ago has already evaporated. I think I am the only receptacle that still retains the memory.

I sink down into my seat, planting my feet like tulip bulbs around my duffle bags still plugging the space in front of me. Mr. Sword is still regaling me of tales of how the sword was forged and urging me to study the fine workmanship of the filigree on the handle. Picking up the obvious cues of the people around me, I opt for the vacant stare, nodding amiably at his trite conversation, and escaping back into the still-running movie reel at the back of mind. If I’m lucky, it’ll be playing the Three Stooges and I’ll be able to make some metaphysical sense of yet another day.