Unbelievable

 
 
The evening train sped slowly up the track

Carrying weary workers on burdened back

Not a sound could be heard in the silent din          

As it chugged to the next stop at Island Inn

The engine labored down the steep hill

Passengers were shouting though quite still

When all of a sudden and out of nowhere

A sound was heard somewhere out there

There was instant silence in the noisy train

As all tried to see above the clattering rain

Pitter patter it went as though on tiny feet

The strangest of sounds bitter yet sweet

A baby wide awake in a very deep sleep

Wanted to know why the hill was so steep

Go back to sleep you shouldn’t be awake

Do stop blabbering for everybody’s sake

Mummy was sleeping so the baby obeyed

Still hoping the train would get on its way

Conductor was bothered anyone could tell

He was fast asleep in the train’s stairwell

Wake him wake him was the silent shout

As calm passengers started rushing about

Leave him alone let him sleep till dawn

Said the irate speaker with a quiet yawn

Meanwhile the pandemonium continued

The sound of the train was now choo-choo

The chugging stopped, the sky turned blue

What had caused it all, still nobody knew

Investigate it said a hairy, baldhead man

Never was like this said conductor Dan

Awaking from his sleep he simply went back

The train sped straight along the winding track

Drama after drama unfolded on the train

Rats in the kitchen roaches in the drain

None understood though picking their brain

There were sunlit skies and driving rain

Everyone was asleep on this uneventful night

None could tell whether it was fear or fright

That drove them to panic in such a calm way

Assured that this night was a very funny day

Never happened before now I truly can say

Only last week I think it was Wednesday

When on this train we were travelling along

Suddenly everything started to go wrong.

Never happened before the conductor was sure

He thought back over a hundred years and more

From the time he had started working this track

For every occurrence he would always think back

The stranger it seems the more normal it gets

I am told rats and roaches were kept as pets

And what never happened occurred every day

It was always like this as the train went its way

The rats I could understand and the roaches too

But what about driving rain out of skies clear blue

What about the train speeding slowly along

And the silent din something had to be wrong

Listen to me I understand that there is more

This happened for a truth, more than folklore

In the train they heard a plane coming in to land

The pilot was blind and only had one hand

The hand was on the next seat not at his side

And the plane was landing just above high tide

He waved his other hand to the conductor below

Who said something’s wrong I know I just know

The conductor said to me I was sitting quite near

This kind of thing happens all through the year

That one hand pilot he flies that plane well

Many in that tide there I often hear them tell

Many have flown with him in that very plane

They have flown with him again and again

He’s never had an incident there’s none to tell

All of them there in that tide, some gone to hell

I have flown with him too for hundreds of years

On this very train you could ask any of my peers

Not one would tell you a lie, too old for that

When we travel on this train we sleep not chat.

Some call this a ghost train that’s old wives crap

I’ve driven this for years and never had a mishap

Hundreds of years of experience and that’s a fact

And all who travel with me just keep coming back

I started to think like I’d caught the wrong train

Why if I am really here where had I left my brain

Must be some connection, this train and that plane

But can’t tell what it is, it’s driving me insane

With that I picked up my brain and began to think

I went to the fridge and from there took a hot drink

I sat on a train seat my legs curled under me

And there I tried to unravel this great mystery

To do justice I was forced to look way back

To the time the train started out on the track

Having sped out slowly after a long, hurried wait

It powered its way quietly past the station gate

It motored straight along the very winding track

Labouring down the steep hill everything in tact

Then there was that silent sound I remember now

Strangely silent as it were I heard it somehow

I was deeply asleep trying to catch up on the news

It was raining heavily from a sky of dark blues

The rain poured down though not a cloud in sight

It was stunningly amazing on this sunlit night.

The more I think about it the more confuse I get

Everything dry as bone yet outside is boiling wet

Looking at this phenomenon not sure that it exists

Trying to come to grips with all its turns and twists

About to give up now I’ve had enough of this

Plane heading for the train I’m hoping it will miss

Don’t bother young man the train conductor said

Soon everyone one of us will join the silent dead

I began to wonder could this really be real

I will lose my life on the long forgotten trail

Fighting with my thoughts, this cannot be true

While struggling with the tears clouding up my view

Come on soothed the old man this is nothing new

I have often witness this ever since my youth

He turned to walk away and then I heard the crash

In just a matter of seconds everything was ash

The flames climb to a height encouraged by the rain

Rats burnt in the kitchen and roaches in the drain

Right then I began to notice I couldn’t see my hand

‘Tis only then I recognized I was the one hand man

How many times I’ve experienced this I can never tell

For I always ended up sleeping in the train’s stairwell

There’s much more to tell that’s one thing I know

But guess what you must wait a hundred years or so

Stewart Russell © 2012