The Unknown

The Unknown

The door of the subway train closed shut. Jamy was standing outside .The doors were painted red inside. The train started to move. At first it was a gentle glide. It entered an underground tunnel. It was pitch dark inside except for little bulbs lighted on the upper left side of the tunnel. Cables ran along the length of the tunnel. The train covered the stretch of tunnel and reached the exit. Sunlight could be seen at the other end.
Another train had picked up speed and it sped out of a tunnel somewhere. It was a beautiful sleek train with a nose coning in front like that of an airplane.

Alfred’s mother was walking down in the corridor of the university building towards the lounge.

The sliding doors of the train shut again. The train sped out of the tunnel into light like a long streak of beam. The sound in the tunnel died out to a silence and it was quiet once again in the tunnel.

Alfred remembered watching the doors shut of the underground subway trains, those that stopped at every station. He remembered watching the details of the make of the door.

The door of the space station was thick metal with reinforced design and secure locking system. The door hatch was pulled open to the inside. The astronauts were in other sections. This door had remained open for sometime. It was a malfunction somewhere, the door was not shutting and the alarms were not going off.

The express trains could reach astonishing speeds and trials were being made to push the maximum speed even higher.

Some people were gathered in the cockpit of the plane. It was an old aircraft.

The pilot of the jet plane opened the window and waved his hand out looking outside. It was a sunny day.

Jamy was standing outside looking up at the door as it shut in front of him. A man took a deep breath inside the train. He had noticed Jamy come and watch the doors shut. It was a particular door that Jamy was interested in. He would move away after the train started to move.

The corridor was lighted in yellow light of bulbs.

Jamy was again watching the door shut.

The train sped outside the tunnel.

The door hatch in the space station remained open.

Alfred’s mother stopped for a few moments in the corridor.

All these were happening simultaneously in the same moments.

Alfred stood at the table waiting to register himself for the talk to be given by one of the Guest Speakers. There were other people also who were waiting in the lounge. A lady had told him the way to the venue hall. He had met a Taiwanese girl student on his way to the centre.

The petite German girl looked at him behind as she took her seat. The speech began. Alfred saw his mother wearing a wedding ring. It turned chilly after a while and he shut the open window. The talk continued. The people asked questions in the end. The talk was on the city undergoing massive development programmes.

A train was just then speeding out of the tunnel.

The doors of the train were in those early days made of special metal.

It was night time, but the subway was full of people and was brightly lit inside. People were seated as well as standing. He looked at the movie star on the platform. He recognized him. The TV above kept playing through out. The door shut again. It was night time. No one noticed anything unusual. The train shook as it moved forward. This time there was a fraction of a moments delay for the speeding train to exit the tunnel.

The blip ran across the screen. She wore spectacles as she stood by the computer screen. She also hosted TV programmes. Alfred noticed the painted red door of the train. He wanted to touch it and have a feel of the metal.

The train in a far off country was covering distance as it moved slowly. People inside it were dozing off. He leaned forward out in to the night air, from the door. A sign post just missed him. Alfred looked towards the engine. The train was taking a curve to the left. It was an old steam engine. He waited till the engine had had taken the full curve and regained it straight route.

He combed his hair in the train. It was morning. He was returning from the college. There were some Japanese passengers nearby travelling in the train. The door was open. It was a thick double panelled door.

He thought he heard someone call him from the outside across the other side of the train. The train went by. She had kept watching as the train as it vanished into the horizon in the evening sky. It was very long time back.

Alfred was not finding any connection or link. Things were coming to a dead end. Jamy’s plans had been near perfect. He had checked every step and move and found it working as he desired. But something else was happening.

The doors shut.

She had kept standing.

Jamy had seemed to have come out victorious then. But something else was also happening. Something he did not know about.

A nearby village. A child was about to be born. A mother was about to give birth following a tradition in the village. Alfred had nearly got something. He knew the answer somewhere. But it was still eluding him. He looked out of the window into the night from the moving train. He had the answer but could not reach it. The village, the person, an occasion, a ritual, the village folk, somewhere they had a connection.

The gathering by the door. He remembered.

The record player had got stuck and was playing over and over again. He played in the house when he was very small.

The blip ran across the screen, it was a bit longer now. It slowly turned into a line. The mission control centre watched every person their eyes on the computer screen. A line showed on their screens, may be a disturbance in the reception, they had thought.

The reception was going fine. Alfred wrote down his name and signed. He registered himself and put on the name badge on the lapel of his coat.

He was playing with a rubber ball.

She had come to the party. She had talked to Alfred. She was seen taking some photos. Alfred had left early before the party ended. He was still not able to get the answer. He again seemed to miss it. He wanted it to express it in words, in writing, everyone could understand.

He was in the rear of the house watching the sunlit day ball in his hand. It was torn. Alfred could not get the answer. He decided he would leave. He again came close to getting it. He almost had it somewhere. He was just missing it. He should find a conclusion he thought.

He watched the speaker speak. His mind was on the wedding ring. He got up and went through the door, past his mother, as the talk ended.

Alfred had again missed it. He thought of giving it up. But he again felt reaching somewhere. Something to do with the shutting of doors and Jamy who had come into his room when he was small. He shook his head; he was still not getting it.

Jamy was gambling. He saw the dice roll and come to a stop. Jamy entered . He pointed a finger at Albert. Alfred thought he had the answer but it was a kind of deep inside. He noticed that he could not express.

The bus interchange. Alfred was about to catch a bus. He went through the door and it shut behind him. Jamy was out their next day seeing the door shut. 'How did you shut the door?', he asked the driver. 'By a thumb', the driver replied.

Alfred thought he thought had missed the answer again. He thought he would finish. He signed the papers. He was ending. He did not have a conclusion. Jamy used to speak as he wrote, Alfred had noticed. Jamy was preparing for something and Alfred was not getting the answer. Something always happened . Jamy did not know. The doors shut by themselves. Alfred was not unable to come to the conclusion… He had tried making a plot for a story sensing something .. something that eluded him …the unknown.