Derailed

Adam Rivers liked trains. Not in the little-boy-wonderment sense, and definitely not in the Freudian-slip sense. In fact, it wasn’t even the trains he liked so much as the travel via train. He liked that once you got on a train, you weren’t going to get lost. You sat in your seat (or wandered the cars) and you did whatever suited you- you read, you ate, you drank (sometimes you drank a lot), you chatted up strangers (at least, he saw others doing as much), whatever. The point is that you didn’t have to put any thought into getting where you were going, because you were going to get there. You might arrive early, you might arrive late, you might go there directly or make a bunch of stops on the way- but as long as you stayed on the train that was staying on the tracks, you weren’t going anywhere but where you were going. Adam found it soothing to know he could rely on at least one part of his day going according to plan.

He was thinking as much to himself as he settled down for the ride from Portland up to Seattle. The rest of his day had definitely not gone as planned. For starters, he was supposed to have company on this late-night journey. The seat next to him should have contained his girlfriend, and the two across from him should have held his brother and soon-to-be-sister-in-law, respectively. But those seats were empty, thanks to one work/personal/family crisis after another. They had encouraged him to go on without them- they would meet up with him tomorrow and anyway someone had to check into the hotel, etc. etc… whatever. Adam didn’t mind the solitude, and he was used to being The Responsible One, so pretty much par for the course, right? Right. Anyway he had a manuscript he needed to work on, and the three-and-a-half hours of uninterrupted quiet beckoned invitingly. He glanced around the car and found he was its only occupant. Yep, he ought to have plenty of peace for his writing.

But first a nightcap.

Adam reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a silver flask decorated with intricate knot-work. He took a smooth swallow of bourbon and couldn’t help but grin: between the story bubbling in his head and the liquor warming up his belly, it ought to be a fine night, indeed.

***

Bright. Way, way too bright.

“Hon- c’n turnna light off?” he groaned, and rolled to bury his face in the pillow.

Except there was no pillow. And he couldn’t roll over, anyway, because he was sitting up. Adam opened his eyes, feeling severely disoriented.

“Whuzza-“

Shit. He was still on the train, and the landscape flying by was lit by sun, not moon. Shit shit shit. He didn’t even remember falling asleep- and he’d bet a million dollars he was now traveling away from Seattle. Why hadn’t the damn ticket-taker come by? Or had he? Shit, how much had he drank? Adam shook his flask doubtfully. It was heavy in his hand, and sloshed in such a way that told him he’d never gone past that first sip.

What the hell?

He rubbed his face, feeling weary and resigned: he was never going to live this one down. Obviously he needed to cut back on the gym, if it was leaving him so exhausted he was sleeping like a coma-victim. He sighed and stood up, determined to figure out what leg of the journey he was on. If he was close to Portland he’d just ride it out and try to get on whatever train his girlfriend was on. If he was closer to Seattle maybe he’d just hop off at the next station.

The first door he tried was locked. Of course. He sighed again and moved to the other end of the car. Also locked.

What the hell?

Okay, so maybe they were… running an exercise? That required locked doors? Adam peered back out the window. He’d done this trip often enough that he figured there was a pretty good chance he’d recognize some landmark or another, and then at least he’d know which way he was headed.

“Uhhh…” he shook his head and looked again, but the view did not change. Rather than the familiar mountains, hills, and lakes of Washington State (or even Oregon, for that matter) he was staring out across a prairie. A flat, endless gold prairie beneath an equally flat and endless blue sky. Maybe it was his imagination, but he was pretty sure he saw a herd of buffalo in the distance.

Imagination! Of course it was his imagination- the whole thing was his imagination, because obviously he was asleep. Obviously. Damn vivid dreams. He hadn’t slept through anything, because he was still asleep.

“But now that I know I’m asleep,” he said aloud, “I can wake up.”

Nothing.

“Okay fine. Then I can fly.”

Still nothing.

“Fantastic. My girlfriend gets to dream about fighting epic battles as a salamander, and I’m stuck in the world’s most boringly realistic dream. And I can’t wake up.”

He gave himself a half-hearted pinch, but couldn’t remember if being pinched was supposed to wake you up, or tell you whether or not you were dreaming. Since it didn’t seem to do either one, he sighed again and sat back down and stared out the window for a while. The landscape didn’t change, but he began to feel more confident that the dark mass he’d glimpsed early had, in fact, been buffalo.

Part of him was tempted to pull out his laptop and get back to work on his story. But another part of him resented the idea of pouring a lot of time and effort into writing something that wouldn’t even be there when he woke up. He was debating whether or not his conscious mind would be able to access something written by his subconscious when he felt the train begin to slow.

Interesting.

The slowing soon became an actual stop, and both doors slid open.

“Curiouser and curiouser,” he muttered, and stood up. Dream or not, he gathered up his coat and backpack and made his way to the end of his carriage, and then out the train. There was no platform, no station- as far as he could tell the train had just paused in the middle of the grass. A prairie dog was watching him warily from about ten feet away: Adam nodded to it, wondering what it was supposed to represent.

“What, are you like the Kansas welcome committee? Should I call you Toto?” But the creature just disappeared down its hole.

Okay then.

The too-bright sunlight felt warm on his bared forearms, but the wind was sharp as a knife and slipped right through his sweater. He tugged his sleeves down, pulled his coat back on, and started walking up the length of the train. He’d almost reached the engine when it disappeared.

Not just the engine- the entire train. Gone. Poof. And the rails with it.

“Oh come on,” he said, but then checked himself. At least the dream was getting semi-interesting.

“Come on what?” asked a voice from behind him, and Adam whirled. There in front of him stood- well, she seemed to have the requisite girl parts in the chest region, but girl was probably not the right word for her. Not human girl, anyway. Her skin was a sort of reddish-ochre he’d never seen on a human, and her eyes were a bright yellow that reminded him of a bird of prey. Her ears were… well, they were pointed. And, unless he was much mistaken, so were her teeth.

“Elf,” he said. The dream was definitely getting more interesting.

“Self?” she said. “Come on self? That makes no sense. Have you injured your head?”

But Adam didn’t answer, because he was still taking in the sight of her. She was shorter than him by at least half a head, and wearing a dusty leather get-up that, to be frank, disappointed him with its practical cut. He was pretty sure he could have come up with a sexier outfit than that for a dream-elf. Her hair seemed to consist of a blending of black and reddish-brown feathers, of all things (or maybe they were called down when they were soft and fluffly like that?). One of her hands was resting lightly on the neck of what seemed to be a perfectly normal horse- but the hand had only four digits, and resembled a bird’s claw more than a human hand. He glanced down at her feet- but they were covered in sensible boots.

“Well?” she demanded.

“Sorry- what?”

“Are you injured?”

“Oh! Uh, no. I don’t think so, anyway.” She gave him a funny look, and then let her eyes travel up and down his body with a clearly unimpressed expression. Adam wasn’t sure how he felt about his a manifestation of his id judging him, but since he’d just done the same…

“I must say, you aren’t really what I was expecting.”

“Excuse me?”

“Come along. My sister will want to meet you, oddly shaped or not.”

“Excuse me?” But the elf-girl did not answer- merely swung herself up onto her horse and began walking it away from him.

“Coming?” she called back over her shoulder.

“Why the hell not,” he muttered, and started following his subconscious into the unknown.

***

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