The Brother Leader sits on a honey yellow Ikea sofa, reading. Sometimes, especially just before dawn, he asks if his train has arrived.
The debris of a MacDonald’s dinner lies crushed at his feet. In between the wrappers, his legs shuffle against empty bullet casings, safety pins and used condoms.
Sometimes he reads till the words begin to blur and warp, twisting into a tableau of insane images on his head. When his men cut the lights just after sunset, he holds his book open so he can remember the page. He would like to read it on the train. Outside, the pop and click of gunfire echoes through the windows.
“How long more?” he asks again.
In the dark, he imagines he’s on the platform, waiting for the last train to take him away from all this chaos. He imagines the firing outside is nothing more than the patter of a thousand passengers’ feet and the occasional explosion simply the arrival of new trains.
But no, not yet. His train has yet to arrive, his men say.
He waits. He watches the window, a square open to the sky in the morning. Outside, the clouds have the colour of sewerage. Soon, his men will have to light the candle stubs. Someone will have to find more food. Someone will need to stand at by the window. To watch if the train’s coming.
The Brother Leader does not shout orders. Instead, he eases into the sofa. He closes his eyes. The whoop of rocket fire breaks the stillness of his thoughts. Dull gunfire, once sporadic, has now become a steady rhythm, like raindrops on the awning of his tent.
And then, he hears it. Clear as ever. The music of brakes against metal, the symphonic whistle of an engine, an orchestra of departure.
He gets to his feet. The Brother Leader checks robes, makes sure his golden pistol is tucked fashionably into the holster at his right ribcage. He worries about his open book. So he takes the oiled-blotted McDonald’s wrapper to mark where he’s last stopped. Page 261. He picks up his three bags. He heads towards the door.
His men stop him. There is no train, they insist.
“You cannot hear it?” he says. “The train is coming. I must not miss my train!”
One man even goes to peek out through the window to check. Something bounces off the walls, and he falls to a ground, a wet red rose blooming from his forehead.
He watches his men scramble around the room. They issue orders to everyone else, load their weapons and disappear into the various rooms. He waits. They’re wasting my time, he thinks. The cough of rifles fills his ears, but it cannot displace the inevitability of his train, sliding to a stop, brakes on full, passengers disembarking, doors opening.
The Brother Leader walks to the door. He would like to take a good first-class cabin with a bed and preferably without any idiotic companions on his long journey. But before he can open it, his men seize his arms and his luggage. Against his will, they guide him away from the door.
“My train!” he yells. “Where are you taking me?”
They say something. But it’s cancelled out by the roar of a rocket bursting through the wall. Smoke studded with embers blocks his vision. His men lead him to a car. They tell him it will take him safely, to his train.
“Yes. Thank you,” he says. “Meet me at the other station.”
The driver takes off. The Brother Leader rests his head on the leather pillow and flicks the air-conditioning vents in his direction. He closes his eyes again. He thinks of the first-class cabin waiting for him, the parquet flooring and the champagne nestled in ice. He imagines scenery scooting past, like now, his kingdom unfurling before him in a motion-picture daydream.
But wait. Instead he hears, brakes blowing and the tripping wheels on the track. He hears the electric buzz of its signals. He hears the horn, louder than ever before. He hears his runaway train, screeching out of control, getting closer and closer. Trembling, he peers out of the window. He expects to see a charging locomotive.
But no. He sees the rocket just as it hits.
END.