Benjamin lay on the railroad tracks, his red flag jammed awkwardly into the earth. His train was two miles ahead, stalled thanks to a minor collision. By the time the details of the struck species had reached the rear of the train, Benjamin learned that the animal was a mythical beast, half buffalo, half reptile. When the animal had been ripped apart by the wheels of the engine, one of the porters reported, its innards had turned to gold upon exposure to the air. “The beast’s feces will grant wishes,” he told Benjamin, who smiled patiently and then leapt off the train. As the rear end brakeman, going back to flag was his job, to let any approaching machinery know that there was an impediment down the line. A friend of his had gone back to flag when his train had come upon a queered rail. He disappeared. Never to be seen again. Another had been torn to pieces by a bear. Another had simply been run over by the oncoming train, which had mistaken the dim lantern for insect fluorescence. Benjamin stared at the tunnel that ran through the mountain a hundred yards beyond him and waited for a sign of locomotion, a vibration of the tracks.
His father had been a conductor, had raised Benjamin on a train. Benjamin would stay in the caboose with his father and the rear brakeman as the two men played cards or drank whiskey or wrestled for hours on end. Benjamin’s mother stayed in one of the sleeping cars, her brain hazy with opium, spending her waking hours writing some kind of poetry in a form so complicated that it took nearly fifty pages before the rhyme scheme made itself apparent. "A life on a train," his father would tell Benjamin, smiling broadly. Then his father would frown, consider the opening part of his statement and find himself unable to continue. His father would shrug and then say, almost whispering, "Life on a train."
One night, his mother appeared suddenly in the caboose while Benjamin was reading a book on falconry and his father was shirtless and sweaty, rolling around on the floor with the rear brakeman. "You’ve rutted nearly a hundred Harvey House waitresses and now you can't even resist this walrus of a man while your own son is in the room?" she said. "Helen," his father said, "go back to your car." She shook her head. "I've written a little poem about you and your grappling partner," she said, holding a book as thick as a Bible. "Benji," his father said, "go with Maurice to the dome car while your mother reads me her newest creation." Maurice, making no attempt to hide his arousal, lifted Benjamin from the bed and carried him to the dome car. As they ascended the stairs to the glass dome, Benjamin held tight to Maurice and inhaled his scent, which smelled exactly like his father.
The next morning, Benjamin awoke in the dome car, the sky shattering against the glass bubble. Maurice was gone, and when Benjamin returned to the caboose, the rear brakeman and Benjamin's father were tearing pages from his mother’s book of poems, letting them sail out the window. "Where is mother?" he asked, and his father replied, "She has left us." He then explained to Benjamin how, after the recitation of her poem, she had violently attacked him and then jumped off the train, almost certainly to her death. "She died?" Benjamin asked. "Almost certainly," his father said, making no effort to comfort the boy. Benjamin watched as his father tore another page out of the book, scanned the lines, smiled, and then let the rushing wind steal the paper from his hand.
Two years later, Benjamin's father passed away in his sleep, poisoned with alcohol. Benjamin made no effort to grieve. He merely took the conductor's hat from the nail on the wall and told Maurice, "I am the new conductor." Maurice spat a wad of tobacco on the floor and then swiped the hat from Benjamin. He then handed Benjamin the rear brakeman’s hat. "I am the new conductor," Maurice said, and Benjamin nodded. He knew that Maurice would last no more than a few years, would grind himself into dust, and when that time came, Benjamin would pass the conductor’s cap to another person that he no longer wished to see live.
Benjamin felt the metal that surrounded him vibrate, thrum with purpose. He pulled the flag out of the ground and stepped to the side of the tracks, watching the tunnel. He could feel the train but there was no sign of it, no sound of it. He watched the open mouth of the tunnel, an endless, swirling darkness. And then there was the single light, pulsing with the movement of the train. Steam erupted from the tunnel, obscuring the locomotive, until the engine burst through the ephemeral fog. Benjamin watched the train, its whistle blasting, as it approached. He felt his entire body stiffen, his internals amazed at the miracle of locomotion, how the world moved with an effort so strenuous that Benjamin could not fathom the mechanics. His flag hung at his side, and, as the train passed by, unwarned, Benjamin watched the mouth of the tunnel, the excess smoke still pouring from the hole. He walked, as if in a trance, toward the opening. It looked to Benjamin, the train rumbling in his ears, like the gateway to a realm so terrible that only the most desperate of humans would seek to gain entry. He finally waved his flag, a warning meant for no one but himself, one he would not heed.