I was supposed to return home after my holiday, and the journey stretched endlessly like a winding river. I opted for a seat in a train compartment, hoping the strange rhythm of the rails would lull me into sleep.
They gave me the upper bunk, but it hardly matteredmy only plan was to drift off as the countryside slipped past the windows. My travel companions were a young mother and her little son, a quiet boy of four named Oliver. Id expected childish racket, perhaps squeals and scattered toys, but Oliver was hushed and serene, almost as if he belonged to the train itself. Once my companions child had sunk into slumber, she and I exchanged a few words, shared mugs of tea that tasted faintly of autumn leaves, then settled ourselves for the night.
In the morning, an abrupt knocking rattled the compartment door, jolting me wide awake. Two policemen, tall and dreamlike in their dark uniforms, entered with an odd formality. Wheres the child? one asked, his voice echoing through the compartment as if it came from another dimension. There, on the top bunkhes sleeping, I replied. In the corner of the bunk, Oliver lay curled up tightly, as if he were a mouse in winter, half hidden and shivering.
Well need to ask you a few questions, said the other, his moustache twitching with uncertainty.
Apparently during the previous night, Olivers mother had indulged heavily in some mysterious brewperhaps gin or some potent English cider. Shed then stepped off at the wrong station, the train pausing like a heartbeat in a deserted nowhere. When she awoke in the morning, she was convinced her son had been abducted by unseen forces. The policemen, summoned in haste, searched the train as if chasing after shadows. In fact, the mother had merely wandered, forgetting that her son remained safe and sound in the compartment.
Its unsettling to consider what thoughts flickered through the mind of such a frazzled mother, lost in the haze of the previous night. Fortunate, truly, that Oliver was left behind, sleeping peacefully through all the commotion. Otherwise, he might have wandered with her into some forgotten village, perhaps the rural edges of Yorkshire, and disappeared among the hedges. The fields and woods could have swallowed him whole.
What became of Oliver I never really knew; the story faded as the rails slipped away beneath us. Yet I hope the mother faced consequences, that she wasnt simply given a modest finesome pounds sterling, hardly enough to remind her of her carelessness. For a child so precious, pampered, and quiet, the dream left me uneasy, lingering long after Id awoken.
