A Familiar Story

by Owen Torrey 

In the book the train left the station, but I was still waiting by the tracks. By the time I noticed, the scene had moved on. It was without me. It followed a young boy to a city where he was welcomed by two people described as his parents. I spent that night alone in the station, sleeping near a window that looked over low trees and a lake. Though I did not know it yet, I would come to know this view well. Somewhere in the world the boy attended a school where he showed a special aptitude for geography. He seemed to always know where things were. Where others saw a shape, he saw a continent. Where others saw green, he saw Moldova. This is a bildungsroman, I thought to myself as the boy passed from year to year. Most nights I cooked the same meal of French eggs in the station restaurant. At this point, I realized I had been left behind. I had no illusion the story would find me again. Though I was grateful for what was here. The violin music that played overhead through hidden speakers. The big fountain where water flowed from a lion’s mouth. There are worse lives. After a few years, the boy received some accolades for his abilities. He worked hard. He spent hours looking at photos of landscapes around the world, trying to locate himself. Sometimes I knew the answer before he did, and I wished I could whisper him a hint. But over time I began to forget about the boy. I read my way through the other books in the train station bookshop. I lay down on the train tracks at night. This was safe because nothing ever came. I felt the cool metal beneath me and watched the glass dome above through which the stars never moved. I did this so many nights I got older. So did the boy. At the encouragement of his friends, he applied to participate in a TV show. Contestants watch a video from the perspective of a train and try to guess where it is in the world. Whoever answers first wins. I remembered this show. I had watched it once when I was in Sweden, stuck all day in a hotel room with a terrible cold. This is a novel that draws from life, I thought. This is a Swedish-language novel, I considered. I had stopped checking on the boy much, but this part began to interest me again. The boy, who was now a young man, dressed in his best suit and stood on the stage below a video of green fields. Occasionally, a fence. Argentina, the boy whispered. This was correct. He advanced to the next round and the next. In the final round, the screen showed a landscape with a large lake on one side and a tall escarpment on the other. There was silence in the studio. Everyone was thinking hard. The track stretched further until a clutter of low buildings appeared. The noise of the train grew louder and louder. At a certain point I realized the sound was coming, not only from the book, but from the distance. I watched as a train arrived in the station and looked into its wide glass eye. I saw myself sitting on the tracks. The boy looked at me for the first time. His eyes were exactly like I remembered, and almost like they were described. I had missed him, though he did not know who I was. I wished I could give him a hint. But nothing I could say would help. We both did not know where we had arrived.