A Simple Truth

                                              A Simple Truth


Lights flashed through the half-shaded windows of the lurching train.  The back of the heads of my fellow traveler’s reflected strobe-like, alternating black and white to the rhythm of hardened wheels on steel rails. Every now and then the bang, pop and whistle of distant fire-works accented the train’s steady drumbeat. With each explosion, green, red and blue lights splashed across the otherwise black and white tableaux and quickly faded away.

It was Hognama, the Scottish New Year celebration.  And the party was well under way. The train was slowly coming to a stop at a minor station down the line from Edinburgh. The whoosh of the opening door carried a huge figure of a man onto the train.  He hesitated a moment and calmly took the vacant seat facing me.  The doors shut, the train proceeded into the night. 

I settled back into the rhythm of my interrupted thoughts.  All was as it had been, except in the flickering light, I could not help but notice that the man in front of me was dressed in full Kilts. The knee length socks where folded downward with precision, the sgian dubh or black knife, housed in its sheath, rode shot-gone above the right calf.  The wide belt was made of fine leather and the embossed buckle carried a bold insignia.  The kilt pin shone brightly.  The shirt and jacket he sported where of the type worn only for formal occasions.  No Ghillie shirt for this man. The man knew what he was about. 

Leaning forward I asked him if he would rather switch seats, as riding backwards made some people ill. “It’s nay bother lad”, he said, and with a smile, offered that this way he would arrive before I do.  Laughing, he reached into his sporran and pulled out a silver flask. He offered to fill my empty plastic cup, and having done so, sat back in his seat. 

His response made me smile and the drink lightened my thoughts a bit.  After awhile he asked “So is it Edinburgh for ya tonight”?  “No, I said, I’m going a bit further than that. I’ve some difficult business to deal with and I’m afraid I’ll miss the party.”  “Pity about that”, he said, “it’s a wonderful time of year.”  I grant you that”, I replied.  “There is nothing like beginnings and endings to put folks in a thoughtful frame of mind”. 

The train rolled on into the night.  The stops came and went and with each one, more revelers joined the journey. In time the train became one big party.  A man wearing an absurd top hat began singing an unrecognizable song in a key I had never heard.  His friends cheered him on.  A woman, somewhere behind me, was complaining loudly to her seatmate about some bad dealings she had recently had with the government.  And a group of rough-necks, apparently just back from the rigs in the North Sea, dared one of their mates to strip down to his skivvies.  He did. 

Amid this chaos my new friend across the way leaned forward and innocently asked if I would be seeing family during the holiday.  That did it.  Perhaps it was the general feel of pandemonium, or the effects of the liquor that loosed my tongue. In any case, I launched into a verbal barrage, adding to the deafening din that needed no further augmentation.
I reeled off the terrible events of the past few days that had brought me to be on this train.  Without restraint I bombarded the poor man with the details of my misfortune with such voracity that he must have felt pinned to his seat by the invisible pressure of my words.  He must have thought that his kind gesture of a social drink had unleashed some angry genie.  Had I the power to switch places with him I would have found a way to gracefully remove myself from the presence of this obviously deranged person.

But he did not.  He nodded politely each time I drew breath and then sat quietly as I once again spewed forth my tale of woe.  Finally, the train reached his stop.  All of the people trailed off one by one until just he and I remained.  He too gathered his belongings and turned to make his way out of the train.  But then just before going he turned back, put his hand on my shoulder and said “Ahg aye laddie, ya tol me where ya bien, but ya dinny tell me where ya goin. Now keep ridin’ this train and don look back or ya might miss your stop”.  With that he was gone. 

I sat there drained from my verbal exertion and at the same moment startled by the depth of the wisdom I had just been given.  With a simple phrase that man had given me a rare gift. As I stared at the now closed door of the train, I felt some of my gloom depart.   

He was right I had been looking back.  I had been allowing my pain to replay itself again and again like a broken record.  Oh, the hurt was still there, we all have scares, but his words where the antiseptic I so needed to begin to heal.  Just then the train lurched forward and down the aisle rolled the challenged troubadour’s top hat.  I picked it up, put it on and slept all the way to my destination.  And to this day when I catch myself looking back with sadness, I always think of that man’s simple truth.