by Kahlen Ryba

Created on: January 23, 2007   Last Updated: May 14, 2007

Goblin Train...
The train from hell clatters noiselessly through the French countryside, carrying its stinking inhabitants with it. The toilettes, with the hideous smell of too many uses stored underneath until the train reaches its destination wafts up from the back of the carriage. A strange body odor seems to hang over the entire cabin full of restless, sleeping bodies, and the sound of the enormously gross fat man two seats ahead as he half snores, half wheezes in his fat sleep.

And here sit I, restless and pissed, frustrated and awake as I pluck strands of hair from the pile of them on my head and jam them back into place under a bobby pin. My mind races. It won't let me sleep tonight. The conductors have mercifully shut off the light in the cabin, finally, giving it an almost candlelight affect as a single saving grace. And one more: with the lights turned off I can see his reflection in the black window. He sits two rows behind me and across the aisle, where I left him so we could try to lay down on these God-forsaken "comfort" night train seat and have a prayer at grasping some sleep before we reach our destination at five in the morning. He reads because he suffers from my problem, too, only in that he can't get comfortable enough to sleep. He probably will never suffer from anything else that I do.
I stare at my reflection in the glass, and it appears a sad, horrible, old ghoul, with long lines along the sides of the mouth, droopy, pouty lips, fiery eyes that seem to no longer hold any power except the fire of bitterness-because of the bags underneath them-and frizzy unmanageable hair that looks as though it is curling into two devilish horns along the two topsides of the head. A sad reflection if ever I saw one. For the first time, I see the evil in myself as though it has consumed my insides so much, I am affected physically. This evil of mine that causes me so much despair and anxst and worry and sleepless train rides. This evil that causes me to hurt people close to me very badly-people I loved, people that meant the world to me-and now I feel as though I am continually hurting this man, this mature and caring flesh and soul of a beautiful man amidst these disgusting ghouls and goblins on the train from hell.
I stare out the glass into the blackness, dotted with blurred pinpoints of light, all held high above the square forms of French houses, the spider-webbed branches of trees. My long, ghoulish face stares back at me, my pouting ghoulish mouth

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