宮梓銘

【Introduction】

The deluxe train cut through the red wilderness. Joshua， the lonely traveler， arrived at the small town on the first day.

The town was always covered in fog. Sometimes the shadow of people flashed by， sometimes it seemed completely devoid of life. Time was not linear. The sun didn’t rise or set. This grey little town was the transfer station to Sailai.

Joshua knew nothing about Sailai other than the fact that he won his train ticket from a raffle. He met fellow travelers who were all heading to Sailai on his second， third or maybe fourth day. There was the stuffy professor who always had a leather bag in his hand; Joshua heard through the grapevine that he was going to Sailai to launder money. There was the middle-aged， generous businessman who wanted to offer help but always stopped short， seemingly concealing something. And there was Vincent， a mysterious young man， who told Joshua that he killed his own father. He was trying to avenge his father’s death by murdering the doctor who failed to cure him， but the person he ended up murdering was his actual father who swapped identities with the doctor to dodge his gambling debts.

On the fifth， or maybe the sixth day， the town got foggier and the time jumped more erratically. Joshua learned from the billboard inside the train station that going to Sailai required five tickets. More tickets meant a higher chance of getting onto the train. Joshua and Vincent decided to work together. Despite his inner moral conflicts， Joshua snuck into every hotel room and gathered five tickets. They headed to the station， hoping to board the last train to Sailai.

Just like Genesis， it was on the seventh day that any certainty left in the world was shattered. Everyone and everything dissolved into the fog. Joshua and Vincent did not make it onto the train. Their faces， bodies， words and even consciousness gradually lost all definitions， and blurred into each other. “The story has ended.” Joshua used his last remaining strength to push out the quotation marks. In the distance， a train sounded its horn.

第一天

薄霧裹著火車頭，夾雜著汽笛聲音的碎片。

約書亞·D從蒸汽火車上走下來，手里提著自己老舊的棕色皮包。等到因為久坐突然站起而發(fā)黑的視野重新清晰，一個霧氣朦朧的火車站臺出現(xiàn)在他的眼前，透過薄霧，可以勉強(qiáng)看見穿著漂亮藍(lán)色制服的工作人員穿梭在人群中，拿著擴(kuò)音器大聲叫喊：中轉(zhuǎn)站到了，請排隊下車……而實際上這列連窗框上都鍍著金的鐵皮火車上的人少得令人驚訝。

真是一件奇怪的事，他想，這么一條冷清的線路怎么會有如此豪華的火車。車站中仿佛有背景音樂，但仔細(xì)傾聽就消失了?；疖嚮钊性俅蚊俺鲆粓F(tuán)蒸汽，在簡易的天棚上咬出了一個白色的缺口，幾根生銹的鋼筋從霧氣邊緣探出頭來，試圖證明自己的存在，整個車站除了蒸汽以外還彌漫著一股令人不快的偏執(zhí)和冷漠。

撇了撇嘴角，名叫約書亞的旅人繼續(xù)向前走。人都會這樣，經(jīng)常會有奇怪的感覺突然出現(xiàn)。他的老師呂西尼昂曾經(jīng)在那個昏昏欲睡、充滿蟬鳴的午后生物課中說道：“雖說經(jīng)過了上萬年的進(jìn)化，人類的危機(jī)本能還是會保留。我們都有時候會感到背后有人，或者忽然襲來的悲傷與恐懼，這些不過是人類曾經(jīng)靈敏的嗅覺的回光返照?！逼沉艘谎壅谟醚劬ψ分痍柟獾男〖s書亞，年邁的老師嘆了口氣，繼續(xù)道：“將普通的氣味斷定為掠食者的信號是我們忽然的危機(jī)感的表現(xiàn)……”

約書亞年幼時家境還算富足，但后來家道中落。他還是能記得總是坐在躺椅上，面目模糊不清的父親在昏暗的燈光下一邊喝酒一邊嘟囔時的樣子。

鐵路線只有一側(cè)有建筑，另一側(cè)則是空蕩蕩的紅色荒原，在來的路上約書亞每天所見的正是這幅景象，唯一的驚喜就是時不時出現(xiàn)的枯死的灌木。

剛開始這幅荒涼、凄清的景象令人生畏，過了幾天，旅人們就已經(jīng)開始欣賞這幅獨特的景色了，但隨著時間的流逝，單調(diào)的紅色荒原讓人厭煩，人們便全都縮到自己的小世界中，與外界切斷聯(lián)系。也就是在這種無盡的時間的沖刷下，在自己嘗試著填滿它的過程中，約書亞才真正感覺到輕松。在大城市中，所有人掛在光禿禿水泥墻上的時間表都是滿的，找不到一絲空缺甚至連一分鐘發(fā)呆的時間也沒有。所以這幾天的長途跋涉才更顯得彌足珍貴。

告別那個狹小的灰暗的毛坯房時，他的內(nèi)心是喜悅的，正如接受到車票時一般。大約在一個月前，約書亞在一次莫名其妙的抽獎活動中贏得了去往薩萊的車票——剛開始他還將信將疑，甚至嘗試著舉報這個公司——雖說他并不清楚這張皺巴巴的車票上終點站的名字意味著什么，但有一個脫離這無盡的繁忙的事務(wù)的機(jī)會正是他的一個夢想。于是，鬼使神差地，約書亞干了一件與他的謹(jǐn)小慎微的性格完全不符的事：出發(fā)。

就是因為這個瘋狂的行為，他才會坐在一輛詭異的豪華火車上穿越無盡的紅色荒原……然后來到這個更加荒誕，充斥著濃霧、水蒸氣與若隱若現(xiàn)的琴聲的中轉(zhuǎn)站。

視線飛過鋼鐵的站臺，隱隱約約能看見出口處的石磚廣場以及幾棟簡陋的木制建筑，還可以看到房頂冒出的濃煙，和濃霧混在一起，遮擋住遠(yuǎn)方小教堂的輪廓?？諢o一人的假象消失了，灰色的、黑色的人穿行在灰白的空氣之中，黑色的、灰色的人行走在充斥著煤灰味的世界里……

煤灰？

約書亞停下了腳步。

這個時代怎么會有燒煤的城市？奇怪。但這一路上奇怪的事多了。比如火車上那一盞在深夜還火熱地發(fā)亮的燈，還有那奇怪的乘務(wù)員，她只要一過了下午六點就會將車廂中所有的窗簾拉上，并且用黃銅大鎖將它與窗框鎖上。就算你問她為什么，她也只會笑一笑，然后離去。

也許是因為路上有什么夜晚出現(xiàn)的飛禽吧。

雙腿繼續(xù)擺動，眼前的景色開始變得清晰，剛開始的那種詭異的危機(jī)感消失了。濃霧慢慢散去，久違的陽光終于光顧這個小鎮(zhèn)，給廣場中央古老的石雕鍍上一層金。水潭中的小魚歡快地游著?，F(xiàn)在是初夏，沒有冬天的余寒，也沒有夏天的酷暑，有的只是溫暖與光明。正懸掛在天穹正當(dāng)中的太陽給予了人們無盡的歡樂。在這個古老的小鎮(zhèn)中，在這個仿佛將人們?nèi)繋У街惺兰o(jì)的中轉(zhuǎn)站中，人是幸福的。

而約書亞卻不寒而栗。

他現(xiàn)在明白了乘務(wù)員為什么要在每晚六點拉窗簾了。

因為他想起來了，在火車上，那時至午夜還亮著的燈，正是現(xiàn)在看似溫暖的太陽。

Day One

The first car of the train was covered in mist. You could hear the steam whistles coming through in pieces.

Joshua D stepped out of the steam locomotive with his worn down brown leather bag in hand. The head rush turned his vision fuzzy for a bit. After he could refocus， a train station shrouded in mist came into view. A station staff member in a neat blue uniform went through the crowd with a speaker in hand， “We are now at the transfer station， please get off in order.” It was quite surprising to see only a few people in this tin train that had gold-plated window frames.

How weird it is to have such a deluxe train operating on an essentially dead route， he thought. There seemed to be music coming from the station but disappeared upon a further listen. Another puff of steam came out of the cylinder， floating up and gathered beneath the modest roof， resembling a white hole. A few rusty pieces of rebar poked out through the steam as if trying to prove that they were still there. The entire train station， besides the steam， was permeated with a disturbing vibe of obstinacy and indifference.

Joshua pursed his lips and kept onward. It’s only human to have such strange feelings out of the blue. In a sleepy afternoon biology class， Joshua’s Professor Lusignan said through cicada chirps outside， “Despite tens of thousands of years’ evolution， humans still retained the instincts to sniff out crises. From time to time， we would still have this feeling that there’s someone right behind us， or feel a sudden wave of sadness or fear. But this is nothing more than just a return of our once acute sense of smell.” Glancing at young Joshua’s eager glimpses at the sunlight， the old professor sighed and continued， “Our sudden sense of crisis manifests in mistaking regular smells for a predator’s signal...”

When Joshua was young， his family was well off， but then things started to go downhill. He could still remember how his father used to lie under the dim light， drinking and mumbling to himself.

There were only buildings on one side of the tracks， the empty and vast red wilderness lied on the other. That’s what Joshua had been looking at since he boarded， with the only difference being dried out shrubs that appeared once in a while along the way.

This bleak and barren land was eerily petrifying in the beginning， but people started to appreciate this unique view after a few days had gone by. However， with more time passing by， the vast redness started to get boring. People on board started to retreat into themselves， cutting off their connections to the outside world. Joshua finally felt truly relaxed with his boundless efforts to fill what seemed like endless time. In big cities， everyone had full schedules hanging from their concrete walls. There was no downtime， not even a minute. This was exactly why the long journey these past few days had been precious.

He was just as happy bidding farewell to the cramped and gloomy house as when he had received his train tickets. Around a month prior， Joshua won the train ticket to Sailai in an odd raffle. He thought it was a scam at first and tried to report the company. Though he did not know exactly what the name of the destination meant on the creased tickets， it was his dream to get out of the endless hustle and bustle. So somehow Joshua did something completely out of character from his usual cautious self—he took off.

That crazy decision led him to this eerie deluxe train going through the red wilderness and dropped him off at the bizarre transfer station filled with fog， water vapor and indistinct background music.

He looked past the train station， seeing the stone square outside the station exit and a few buildings made out of wood. There was thick smoke coming out of the roofs; mixing together with the fog， it blocked the view of the chapel in the distance. Now he could see that there were people on the street. People who were grey and black， walking amongst this pale， coal-ash-smelling air.

Coal ash？

Joshua stopped.

Were there still cities that burned coal in this day and age？ How weird. But many things seemed out of the ordinary along the way. For example， the light that burnt bright into the night on the train， and the strange train attendant who would shut the drapes in all the cars the moment the clock stroke six and lock them to the window frame with a huge brass lock. When you ask her why， she would only smile and walk away.

Maybe there were some nocturnal birds out？

He kept walking and the view became clear. The dreaded sense of fear was gone. The fog dissipated and the sun shone upon this small town， gilding the old statute in the middle of the square. Fish swam around happily in the pond. It was the beginning of summer; there were no winter shivers nor summer burns， only warmth and brightness. The sun had brought people joy. People were happy in this ancient small town， in this transfer station where it seemed to bring people back to Medieval times.

A shiver travelled down Joshua’s spine.

Because he understood why the attendant shut the drapes at 6 every evening.

He realized that the light that shone into the midnight on the train was just the warm sun in the sky.