Hello again dear listeners. I know it’s been some time since I released a new episode of The Skylark Bell, but I believe you’ll feel it was worth the wait as you listen to this strange, uncanny tale I cooked up after a solo train ride to Inverness while visiting Scotland earlier this year.
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FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Things with Wings Productions presents: I Met Him on the Train - A Special Episode written exclusively for The Skylark Bell podcast. I’m your host, Melissa Oliveri.
Hello again dear listeners. I know it’s been some time since I released a new episode of The Skylark Bell, but I believe you’ll feel it was worth the wait as you listen to this strange, uncanny tale I cooked up.
I found myself once again staying with my dear little friend Russell the cat this week, and he once again worked his magic. I wrote this story over the course of 2 days, pulling inspiration from a recent trip to Scotland where I set off on my own on a 3 hour long train ride each way from Stirling to Inverness. Russell kept me company into the night and in the early morning hours as I followed the winding path of the story that came spinning out of me. It started as a title: I Met Him on the Train... then I had to sort out the details. Who did I meet? What did they do? Why was it important? What happens next? And after that? And finally, how does the story end?
All those questions will be answered... well, sort of, if you’ve listened this far into the podcast, you know I’m not one to wrap things up with a tidy little bow, I much prefer to leave room for interpretation, and imagination.
Before we dive into the story, I’d one again like to thank Lauren and Rachel for the use of their apartment over the course of this week. The opportunity to house and cat sit for them gave me the calm and space I needed to write.
And now, at last, it is my pleasure to invite you to settle in… grab a blanket, and a warm drink, or perhaps, if it is also warm where you are, turn on a fan and grab an ice cold lemonade, and let’s get started.
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I met him on the train
It was a Tuesday morning, and I was running late. The trains had been delayed due to flooding on the tracks after days and days of torrential downpours.
I didn’t notice him at first, and in fairness, when I eventually did, there was nothing much to notice. He was quite an ordinary man, not memorable in any particular way. I had headphones on and was staring out the window as the train barrelled North. I admired the landscape stretching out in a blur of greens, browns, and yellows as the sun rose over the Scottish Highlands. His presence came to my attention at a quaint little station about halfway between Glasgow and Inverness when I heard him say “G’day,” while my playlist was between songs. I turned from the window to glance at the seat across from me.
Average height from what I could tell with him sitting down. Non-descript features, civilian clothes in neutral colours. Everything about him was... the word generic comes to mind. Never in a million years would I have guessed... well, that will come later.
Our gazes crossed paths, and he held fast, staring into my eyes in a way that made it impossible for me to look away. His facial expression, like the rest of him, was completely neutral. I felt a mounting desire to get up and change seats but found myself paralysed by his unwavering stare. Finally, he blinked, smiled a plastic sort of smile, and the spell was broken. Oddly enough, he now looked somewhat friendly and approachable, but with an undercurrent of something terribly, terribly wrong that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
“Lovely day we’re having after all that rain, don’t you think?” he asked.
Something was off. Had his lips moved? I couldn’t tell if I’d heard him with my ears or if the words had somehow miraculously been channelled directly into my brain. I nodded silently, still locked firmly in my seat by some invisible force, whether from an outside source or a mechanism inside my body I couldn’t tell.
“Wonderful town, Inverness, I think you’ll quite enjoy it,” he mentioned, casually. Again, I couldn’t tell if his lips had moved. Perhaps he was a ventriloquist? I acquiesced with a single nod.
“Lovely town, Inverness...” he mused, letting the thought trail off as he turned his head to look out the window. I noticed his movements were mechanical in nature, not quite human. The spell broken entirely now, I blinked, and also turned to look out the window. The view outside seemed tinged with an indigo tone that hadn’t been there before, as though someone had painted over the window with a thin layer of watercolour.
Suddenly a thought occurred to me, “How did you know I was going to Inverness?” I asked, turning to look back at him. I stared in shock at the empty seat across from me. My eyes scanned the train car, both in front and behind me, but the man was nowhere to be seen. Had I dreamt him? Yes, that must be it, I must have dozed off with my head leaning on the window, lulled by the steady movement of the train, and had one of those strange dreams brought on by weeks of insomnia and a diet comprised mostly of chips and curry.
I chuckled sheepishly and turned my gaze back to the outside world. The train was immobilised at a small-town station. I let my eyes travel from left to right at the people waiting on the platform, first noting a middle-aged woman with mass of red hair cascading down her shoulders, her coral sundress was blowing in the breeze. Next to her stood a tall man in shorts and a hoodie with a backpack slung over his shoulder, the two looked like they’d struck up a friendly conversation, both flashing shy smiles at one another. My gaze travelled the empty space between them and landed on the third and last person standing on the platform. My stomach churned as I saw the man who, only moments before, had been sitting across from me. I felt the cognitive dissonance shake me to my core as I watched him stand patiently waiting to get on the train. The train doors hadn’t opened yet, he couldn’t have gotten off the train and onto the platform in the time since I’d last seen him in his seat.
The long signal tone sounded and the doors to the train cars slid open. The man in the hoodie and woman in the coral sundress entered the car behind me, and the impossible man climbed into mine. I watched, fixated, stunned silent, shaken, as he made his way down the aisle and slid into the seat across from mine.
“G’day,” he said with a nod. He seemed completely normal. So normal it felt abnormal. His tone was normal, his face was normal, his smile was normal... not a sign of the strangeness the previous iteration of him had been drenched in. He also didn’t have that strange hold on me, and I found myself able to respond to him and, thankfully, move. I shifted in my seat and nodded a greeting back at him.
“Are you traveling for work or for pleasure?” he asked in a friendly, casual tone.
“I’m taking the day to explore Inverness,” I replied, reeling at the impossibility of the situation.
“Wonderful town, Inverness, I think you’ll quite enjoy it,” he commented, striking fear in my heart as I recognised the words his doppelganger had uttered before suddenly vanishing only a short while ago.
“There’s a bookstore there,” he carried on conversationally, as though nothing was amiss... but so, so much was amiss. “It’s called...” his voice trailed off and his eyes lifted toward the roof of the train car as he scanned his memory, “...Peakey’s... Peakey’s Book Shop. It’s slightly off the beaten path, but you should take the time to find it.”
He paused briefly before carrying on, “Would you like to know the secret to writing a great story?” he asked. I provided an uncertain nod in response. It was uncanny that he should ask me that, I’d been suffering from writer’s block for months, and looming deadlines from my publisher had caused an endless string of sleepless nights. If this strange man on the train had the secret to breaking the curse, I was willing to listen.
“Enduring curiosity,” he replied, his mouth curling into a knowing smile. He leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes; the surreal conversation was over.
We didn’t speak the rest of the way. The train eventually pulled into the station at Inverness and we both got off. I had every intention of following him out of the station to see where he’d go, but he disappeared into the crowd like a plume of smoke dissipates into the wind.
I walked out of the station and marvelled at the architecture of the buildings across the street. I had put together an itinerary, but decided to cast it aside in favour of getting lost in the streets and maybe stopping somewhere for lunch if it suited my fancy.
I pushed through crowds of tourists, my eyes scanning for a way out of the madness. “I wonder where this goes?” I said out loud as I veered into a narrow alleyway between two stone buildings. I got to the end of the alleyway and gasped at the view. A joyful smile immediately spread across my face; I had forgotten how much I loved exploring a new city on my own.
Spread out in front of me was a river with three bridges stretching across it, each with their own architectural style. At the far end, on my side of the river, I saw a castle mostly covered in scaffolding. I had read it was under renovation and had no plans to waste my time trying to get a good view through the construction fence, so I forged ahead and walked across the bridge closest to me.
The view from the opposing shoreline was lovely. I noticed a series of old buildings and church steeples peeking out from the lush green of the treeline that stretched along the river on the other side. That was one advantage to all the rain we’d had, vegetation was flourishing. I walked along the road that ran parallel to the river until I came to a pedestrian bridge and crossed back toward Inverness. Once back on the other side I decided on a whim to walk toward one of the churches, and discovered a small graveyard tucked away behind it after following a narrow winding trail forged between a stone wall and a row of shrubs. I’d always liked a quiet walk through a graveyard, exploring the inscriptions on the gravestones, wondering about the lives lead by the people buried there. I spent more time in the graveyard than I should have, and my shoes and socks took on water as the overgrown grass was drenched from recent downpours.
At the very back of the graveyard, I noticed a tall, slim gravestone with a tangled mass of vines on top. Intrigued, I gingerly made my way over to it. I was surprised to discover, upon closer inspection, that the tangled mass of vines was, in reality, a large bird’s nest. I stood on my tippy toes to try and see the contents, but it was too high for me to get a good view. I sighed and took a step back to look at the gravestone, and noticed a faint series of letters mostly covered by a layer of moss. I gently ran my hand over the stone and watched as the moss crumbled to the ground. I gave the stone a series of quick wipes with my palm and squinted to read the inscription. My brow furrowed in concentration as I tried to decipher the name engraved on the stone, but time and the elements had rendered it illegible. Beneath it, however, were the words Lived a life of enduring curiosity, and underneath that: 1905-1974. Enduring curiosity: The same words the man on the train had said to me. I shuddered involuntarily at the memory of him and his doppelganger.
A cold drop of rain landed on my cheek, startling me back to the present moment. I looked up at the sky and noticed a band of dark clouds had rolled in while I was busy inspecting the gravestone. I turned and began walking away when a loud screech made me turn on my heel in shock. The bird was huge, I’d never seen one like it. I stared in awe as it landed in the nest, pulling its massive wingspan closed as it curled up and all but disappeared behind the tangle of branches and dry grass. Its colouring was mostly grey and black, and its size imposing, but its most striking feature was its eyes, which were the colour of garnet stone.
I shivered and scurried out of the graveyard, exiting through a different gate than the one I had come through on the way in. The rainfall was gaining momentum now, and I turned to look down each end of the small, deserted street I found myself on, desperately looking for shelter. To the left I saw an easel on the pavement with an arrow pointing toward a green door. Whatever business it was, I’d find a reason to be in it if it got me out of the rain. I half jogged down the street to the door and quickly pulled it open. The smell of old books hit me immediately, and I took a step back through the still open door, braving the rain to read the sign above it: Peakey’s Book Store.
Discomfort set it immediately. The man on the train had told me about this place, and there was something wrong with the man on the train. I took a few steps into the bookstore and stopped to get my bearings. Row upon row of floor-to-ceiling shelving lined the tiny, cramped shop, every shelf filled to the brim with books, and piles of overstock books on the floor next to them. At the center of the store a metal spiral staircase extended to a second-storey mezzanine, also lined edge to edge with books, and also with droves of books stacked on the floor. I checked the signage, the books appeared to be divided by Fiction, Non-Fiction, and Children’s Books. I decided to check the children’s books first, hoping to find a vintage copy of Alice in Wonderland with original illustrations. I scanned the 3 bookcases in the section from top to bottom, but though there were many copies, I didn’t find quite the edition I was looking for. Next, I wandered to a series of shelves labeled Fiction and found they were sorted by author name. I looked for Daphne DuMaurier, one of my favourites, but the three books of hers they had were ones I already owned.
I carried on perusing the store, row by row, shelf by shelf, pile by pile... Not looking for anything in particular, but rather enjoying the warmth of the shop and the endless possibilities within the pages of each and every book. I was also keeping an eye on the weather through the store’s only window, which provided a narrow glimpse of the outside world.
I wasn’t sure how much time I’d spent in the shop, but eventually it looked like the sky was clearing and I decided it was time to head out. I gingerly made my way around the piles of books on the floor and was about to leave when a small book haphazardly placed on top of the checkout counter caught my eye. I picked it up and read the title out loud: “I Met Him on the Train”. It was a relatively small book, hardcover with a dustjacket that featured a view of the Scottish Highlands through a train window. I turned the book over in my hands, noting there was no author listed anywhere on the cover. My curiosity aroused; I cracked the book open to the first page...
I met him on the train
It was a Tuesday morning, and I was running late. The trains had been delayed due to flooding on the tracks after days and days of torrential downpours.
I didn’t notice him at first, and in fairness, when I eventually did, there was nothing much to notice. He was quite an ordinary man, not memorable in any particular way. I had headphones on and was staring out the window as the train barrelled North. I admired the landscape stretching out in a blur of greens, browns, and yellows as the sun rose over the Scottish Highlands. His presence came to my attention at a quaint little station about halfway between Glasgow and Inverness when I heard him say “G’day,” while my playlist was between songs. I turned from the window to glance at the seat across from me.
Average height from what I could tell with him sitting down. Non-descript features, civilian clothes in neutral colours. Everything about him was... the word generic comes to mind. Never in a million years would I have guessed... well, that will come later.
Our gazes crossed paths, and he held fast, staring into my eyes in a way that made it impossible for me to look away. His facial expression, like the rest of him, was completely neutral. I felt a mounting desire to get up and change seats but found myself paralysed by his unwavering stare. Finally, he blinked, smiled a plastic sort of smile, and the spell was broken. Oddly enough, he now looked somewhat friendly and approachable, but with an undercurrent of something terribly, terribly wrong that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
“Lovely day we’re having after all that rain, don’t you think?” he asked.
I slammed the book closed, my heart racing. What in the world? How could this book in a tiny second-hand bookstore on a quiet street in Northern Scotland be describing the exact series of events that had transpired earlier in the day? I worked to regain control of my functions, and with still-shaking hands reopened the book. I scanned through the pages, and sure enough, the rest of my journey was described in detail. Meeting the first man’s doppelganger, walking the streets of Inverness, crossing the first bridge, coming back across the river and exploring the graveyard, the large bird with the garnet eyes, and finally, finding the bookstore.
I tentatively turned the page.
I’m not sure how much time I spent in the shop, but eventually it looked like the sky was clearing and I decided it was time to head out. I gingerly made my way around the piles of books on the floor and was about to leave when a small book at the end of the checkout counter caught my eye. I picked it up and read the title out loud: “I Met Him on the Train”. It was a relatively small book, hardcover with a dustjacket that featured a view of the Scottish Highlands through a train window. I turned the book over in my hands, noting there was no author listed anywhere on the cover. My curiosity aroused; I cracked the book open to the first page and was shocked to find my own story written and bound within its pages.
I slammed the book closed, my heart racing. After a few minutes of working to regain control of my functions, and with still-shaking hands, I reopened the book. I scanned through the pages, and sure enough, the rest of my journey was described in detail. I carried on reading, finally reaching the point where the book crossed into the future.
Again, the racing heart. Did I want to know what would happen next? I stared at the last paragraph for a solid minute before turning the page.
I glanced up from the book’s pages, troubled and more than a little uneasy. Suddenly, I came to a realisation that sent me reeling. Every patron in the bookstore looked like the man from the train...
My brow furrowed in confusion. What?? I had noticed a woman with a little boy in the children’s books when I first came in, and I had crossed paths with a young couple as I came down the stairs just a few minutes ago, what was this book talking about?!
Every fiber in my body was begging me not to look up, but the process was unstoppable. I slowly lifted my head and tore my gaze from the book’s inexplicable pages. At the back of the store, I saw a man climbing a ladder to reach for a book on one of the top shelves; from the back he was wearing ordinary clothes and looked to be of average height. I glanced at the second-floor mezzanine and saw a man sifting through a series of war books. I could see his profile and felt a mounting sense of dread rise from the pit of my stomach. My breath caught in my throat as I scanned the remainder of the bookshop. The man crouched on the floor sifting through a pile of paperbacks, the man in the children’s section holding an antique book up to the light, the man walking up the stairs in the most ordinary way... all of them identical, and all with the same unsettling mechanical movements and neutral facial expression as the first man from the train.
“Wonderful town, Inverness, I trust you’ve enjoyed it?” came a voice from behind me. I recognized it instantly and had to fight the urge to run. I slowly turned to face the man from the train. The second one, the one who made casual conversation and moved in a human way, the one who had life in his eyes. He was standing behind the checkout counter with a receipt pad in his hand, a gleam in his eye and a smile only slightly teasing the corner of his mouth.
“I... I’d like to purchase this book,” I stuttered, stumbling over my words. I felt the room spin, the endless supply of books melding into a blur of paper, dust, and typeface.
He nodded and leaned on the counter to write up my receipt. I leaned on the counter to catch my balance. The man folded the receipt in half, then straightened his body and extended his arm across the counter to hand it to me. I gingerly took the paper from his grasp as I reached my other hand into my pocket to grab my wallet. I unfolded the receipt to check the total, but was instead greeted with a short, two-word message: Enduring Curiosity. Confused, I looked back up at the man, but he was gone. I turned to scan the bookstore, only to find it completely deserted save for the endless assortment of books lining its walls and piled on its floor.
I slipped his receipt into the book and tucked it under my jacket for safekeeping, I didn’t trust the Scottish weather to behave for very long, and I didn’t want the book getting wet. I stepped out onto the street and saw a handful of people milling about, to my great relief each one appeared to be an individual. A woman carrying a bin full of books bustled past me and entered the bookstore, I heard someone inside greet her, it was not the man from the train.
I shook my head and carried on down the street, meandering through the heart of Inverness. I wandered into a place called Victorian Market, which contained a food hall. I circled every booth and settled on one that was serving Cullen Skink, a traditional Scottish chowder which I hadn’t had an opportunity to try yet. It was wonderful. I meandered through the market’s various shops and restaurants, then carried on exploring until I found a small bakery tucked at the end of a narrow side street. I selected two delectable pastries that would serve as my lunch. I sat on a park bench to savour my dessert and take in the view, then eventually made my way to the station to catch the last train back to Glasgow.
I sat in the same seat I had sat in on the way to Inverness and stared out the window, listening to music as the landscape outside went scurrying by in a blur of green, brown, and yellow as the sun set on the Highlands. I was sitting backwards this time, always a strange sensation. The train stopped at several small towns, the same ones it had stopped at on the way North. Between two songs I heard someone say, “Good evening.” I looked up to see the man from the train, once again sitting across from me. I felt no shock this time, I simply smiled at him. “Lovely town, Inverness...” he mused, looking out the window.
“Indeed, it is, a place filled with enduring curiosity,” I said. He didn’t turn to look back at me, but his reflection in the window gave me a glimpse of the smile teasing the corner of his mouth. I turned to look out the window myself, wondering what was behind the mountains in the distance, wondering what would happen tomorrow, wondering whether the man on the train would disappear again in a moment.
The man did not disappear from the train, he got off a few stops before mine like an ordinary person. We didn’t speak or make eye contact again before he left. I scanned the platform after he got off, curious to see which direction he would go, if anyone would be there to greet him, or if his doppelganger would then climb into my train car and take his place, but he vanished into the crowd like a plume of smoke dissipates into the wind, and his replacement never came.
As the train neared Glasgow, I pulled the small, strange, book from inside my jacket. “I met him on the train,” I whispered as I ran my finger over the letters in the title. I gently cracked the book open, only to find every page completely blank.
My story was, as of yet, unwritten... but I now knew the secret to writing a great story: Enduring curiosity. I pulled a pen from my bag and got started:
I met him on the train...
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Thank you so much for listening, I truly hope you enjoyed I Met Him on the Train, an original story written exclusively for The Skylark Bell podcast.
If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating or a review, they are both greatly appreciated. You can also support my work by subscribing to Patreon. Patreon supporters get early access to ad-free podcast episodes, digital downloads of my music, and so much more. It’s the first place I share my creations. However, if you prefer not to subscribe, but would like to make a one-time contribution, you can do so via your podcast platform. Any and all financial support is greatly appreciated.
Once again, thank you for listening – I’m Melissa Oliveri, writer, composer, and producer of The Skylark Bell Podcast.
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