Carriage 17

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Created by Kirill Spivachevski

Inspired by the world masterpieces <<The Shining>> and <<1408>>

Carriage 17

It was the year 1929. America still reeked of the Depression that followed the First World War. Hungry days wandered the streets of the country, for the food from the counters was being shipped to the military in need.

At the very end of that cursed year, a bone-chilling winter descended. During that time, the writer of mystical novels, Stanley Fontaine, had just released his latest book — Love and Death. It explored a philosophical thread: that love is like a rose — beautiful yet thorny, or sweet yet sticky like jelly. A month earlier he had submitted the manuscript to the publishing house, and today he was forced to go there to hear their verdict.

He climbed into his 1929 Ford, slammed the old door shut with a loud bang, turned the key, and the engine roared to life, leaving its scent behind as he drove across the pure white snow toward the publishing house.

Upon arrival, he pushed open the heavy old titanium door with a creak and stepped into a dimly lit room where only a meagre fraction of light managed to penetrate. Before him stood a table of rotten wood, and behind it, on bourgeois chairs from the 19th century, sat the workers of the self-publishing house.

"Good day, Mr. Fontaine."

Stanley approached them and said:

"I am from the Boston Library. I came regarding my book."

"Ah... what exactly would you like to know, sir?"

"I want to know whether my literature is worthy of worldwide publication."

"We have read your book and are ready to share our thoughts on it."

"I'm listening."

One of the workers rose opposite the table and fixed Stanley with a confident, reading gaze.

"Your book is full of tangled twists and turns, and we do not wish to upset you, but it is unlikely that anyone will find it interesting."

"Please understand... I put a part of myself into it."

"I can understand that. We all put a part of ourselves into whatever we do. A mixture of love, mysticism... and death... that deserves respect. But there must be at least some breathing space."

Stanley silently nodded, listening to the criticism, and lowered his eyes as if finding a grain of truth in those words.

"You know, when I heard about a murder in one of the hotels in Kansas quite some time ago, it inspired me to write this novel. It pushed me to write about the causes of death."

"I admit, a good move — transferring events from real actions into the fiction of your thoughts. Quite an interesting approach."

A faint sound of wind passed through the room.

"Yes, I have always done it that way, and I mostly love reading stories based on real events!"

"And one more thing... try to change the structure of the second half of the book, because something incomprehensible and chaotic happens there. We had great difficulty understanding what it was about. We will give you a generous amount of time to revise it."

Stan said nothing against the critic's arguments. He took his book and drove home.

"Have a good day, sir."

Stan slammed the door loudly and got into his car.

On the way home he noticed a post plastered with newspapers about incidents in the South, in the state of Louisiana. Parking nearby, he got out and walked confidently toward the post, peering at the announcements.

"Bloody fire in Louisiana," Stanley read the headline.

His eyes darted across the text; he ran his finger along the lines and read:

"Four people burned alive, the rest received dangerous burns on their bodies."

Stan tore the announcements from the post, finding inspiration in these stories, and drove home.

Late that evening he spread the leaflets out on his desk, sank into his armchair, lit a cigarette, and began replaying the moments in his head like a film.

An hour later he was drinking heavily, trying to sink into the atmosphere and let it pass through him.

Stanley's pupils moved; he stared at one fixed point as if a man with an axe and a furious scream from the newspaper would leap out from it. He imagined those moments while exhaling cigarette smoke.

Goosebumps rose on his skin and he began to twitch nervously. In his drunken state he took one last gulp of whiskey and felt a movement in his pupils. The moments that seemed unsuitable for the book he simply flipped past in his mind.

Drunk in the armchair, he sat and imagined himself sitting in the middle of a train compartment, watching all these moments unfold.

In a surge of inspiration and very strong intoxication, he grabbed a pen and began writing everything he was imagining — everything he saw. Sweat ran down his forehead. At the last moment he saw the number of a carriage, but could not fix it in his mind, because in his drunken thoughts the numbers kept switching places with Chinese hieroglyphs in turn:

真的, 是否如此 你看到了什麼？

"What the fucking hell?" he muttered, not understanding the Chinese characters on the wall.

And the hieroglyphs began to change faster:

你不屬於這裡

這是地獄嗎？還是煉獄？

His head spun with thoughts, and from the strong dose of alcohol he collapsed onto the floor, hitting it hard, and lost consciousness.

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