Cortous...an excerpt

 “I guess I’m there.” Cortous stepped inside and put his bags down on the spacious seat. He surveyed his quarters: a prison cell-sized room with a sink and twelve large nipples stuck to the linoleum ceiling blowing out cold air, mother’s milk for travelers in the tropics. A public address speaker sprayed information into his chambers. Cortous got confirmation that the train was about to depart. He hung an extra shirt on tender hooks provided in his cabin – just below the large red button that teased you with the word ‘call’. Cortous debated pushing it just to see who would show up and what they might bring with them if he did.

Heads poked out of windows. Would this be the last goodbye to the platform below? Cortous stood in the tight corridor in front of his cell. A pale, older foreigner smoked a cigarette outside the adjacent cabin. He glanced at his neighbour and put a firm grip on the mobile phone that was clipped to his belt inside a leather holster, daring Cortous to move closer (or count off ten paces). The aging dame of rail travel got lift off and the platform audience waved their delight. The smoking sheriff next to Cortous took a final drag and flicked his cigarette into the outside world, snarling at the intrusive nature of first class train travel, disappearing into his private abode. The Nong Khai express rolled awkwardly out of Bangkok’s city limits; Cortous’s body elasticized with each sudden burst of rail energy. The guy in cabin 7 needed to be properly molded for further forward motion or he risked letting the steel rails he depended on now take him a lot farther than he really wanted to go. As Cortous rattled he thought about the irony of train travel: you’re detached, free to go, yet you’re on a fixed track. But why has the word ‘derailed’ become so synonymous with failure?

The train butler knocked on Cortous’s door and opened it before Cortous could invite him in. He pointed at the seat, motioned Cortous to stand up, and then he got to work assembling a bunk bed out of a well-padded vinyl bench, decorating it with a crisply starched white sheet, matching fluffy (okay, sort of) pillow and a baby blue terry-cloth blanket sealed inside a plastic bag. Operation complete, the butler turned waiter handed Cortous a breakfast menu for the mandatory pre-order process. Cortous politely declined, but the waiter wasn’t done yet. “You want beer?” He declined that too. The butler-waiter exited the room taking note of the cabin number (7 is cheap, forget about trying to sell anything to that guy). Cortous now knew who would show up if he pressed the red call button. I pressed that distress button there for a reason. ‘Derailed’…doesn’t that mean anything to you!

  Cortous left his professionally made bed and nipple fed air-conditioned premier class cabin in the last train car to take a stroll through the corridors of the Nong Khai express to the first train car. Entering the long stretch of enclosed habitation designated as second class, the waiter-butler-red-button guy jumped out at him for one last attempt at securing an order. The Grand Dame rumbled loudly, her corridors unfit for conversation (or breakfast order talk), offering a convenient excuse for Cortous just to shake his head and keep on going. Bunks lined the walls of second class and, like a train track intersecting the landscape, there were two sides to see as Cortous walked through the cars past sleeping passengers, card-playing backpackers and chattering drunks, all cooled down by desk fans mounted to the low ceiling.

(C) Bjorn Turmann. Cannot be reproduced or retransmitted without permission from the author