Brottby, Sweden.
The Express Crawler
The Train from West Staden on the North Pacific to the
other end of the continent, across the Sierras to the North Canadian Atlantic
city of Nova Scotia, through the Great Lakes, border cities of Toronto, cutting
across to the French speaking states, was appropriately called the express
crawler for very good reasons. It is a Express Train racing across the vast
terrain at edge of technology speeds of 550 kilometres per hour on the gentle
descents, of which there were many on these transcontinental trip of
unimaginable distances, but it still took a lot of hours to traverse across the
giant landmass from beginning to end station. Thus the “crawler” appendage by
the drivers, who were a breed apart from the normals.
These were men and a single woman who managed to make
the cut by providence other than some far sighted regard for equal rights of
the sexes. She was as straight as they come, a tough soul, hardened by life's
experiences encased in a deceptive shell of medium height, no flesh to spare,
sharp faced female body. She cut no slack and was given no slack, she did her
job, expected nothing of none and gave nothing other thann her fair share of
the cut. Among the corps of tight knit drivers of the Express Crawler, one found
the tightest association of individualism that ever found earthly expression.
From different walks of life, fate brought them together, to be the drivers of
all drivers, on the long stretches of the North American ways, albeit their way
is defined within a twenty four gauge track of the heights of metallurgy and
the isolated world of super speed trains. The super trains were a technology
above the norm, these were the technologies that have given railway a future
and a certainty of maintenance just as the luxury cruisers ensured the adaptive
survival of large ships.
These were the
heights of moving comfort, the simplicity of excellence attained in the design
of moving parts, and the clean and renewable and inexhaustible ion energy that
powered their engines. The development of ion splitting energy for civil
employment beyond the space pograms in the primitive era of modern age had
gained mundane earthly relevance in these super trains. Three hundred years of
avid enthusiasm among the seemingly inherited trade of locomotive engineers,
although the term locomotive engineering, is an accolade of a past engineering
era that has absolutely nothing to do with the age of technology engineering
under consideration, yet they still called themselves locomotive engineers,
just like the meaninglessness of Epicurean in this time, as a social grouping,
is as far removed from the origin of the word as it could. Like the Epicurean
of the 23 century who prided themselves in their ceaseless consumption of
knowledge, these locomotive engineers, who perfected the engine technology that
still made rail travel an appreciated convenience of the age, delighted in the
twist of archaic relevance that the insertion of the word locomotive gave them.
Like the speaking of latin among American philosophers. The other factor that
baffles most technology geek (that survivor of a word) is the notion tossed
around by some ancient historians, that rail is not an accepted term favoured
by the purist to describe the moving pipes of carbon in nature colours between
two magnets, whooshing without a single point of contact, and with engine
technology so perfected that a ruptured haemorrhoid would hardly have found
cause for complaints. The Express Crawler was the height of rail technology
much as it ushered in a new era of rail travel. The dedicated corps of drivers,
appropriately referred to as Rail Pilots, commanded prime territory that sliced
across the large Canadian continental land mass.
I was twenty four years old, when after my four
Master's in combined Physics and Engineering, I applied to pilot that enviably
subdued cigar shaped shade that for the sheer luxury and elegance of travel
style was a primary choice for those who really wanted to travel across the
country.
In our time just like any other time one tried very
hard to find a niche job that will sustain one through to pension. I saw the
shaded cylinder when I was barely nine years old. I was on a trip into the
country with the Old Man, my dear dad, who loved his weekend drives as much as
his tuna sandwiches; double bread toasted between two iron plate, till the
bread and the condiments in-between fused into something resembling a pie but
richer and softer, without the crumbs and certainly satisfying. My Dad, was
great man of the outdoors, not in the sense of the "great outdoor
men" who first came and built this mighty empire of glistening steel and
tamed wilderness. No, no, he was regular city man, who lived in the surfboards
and considered long drives into the freedom of untouched wilderness a serious
obligation of every Canadian. It was on one of his seemingly unplanned, but
what actually was a well thought out plan of no less than three hours away
every weekend into the mountains and the highlands that spread out from our
little suburb adjoining that great city of Sadena, that overlooked the Pacific
North West, yes, the Pacific, the vast body of water that encircled the world,
a full 70 % of the earth's surface was covered by the mighty waters; and in a
sense one gained a perception of the vastness of these Pacific from the heights
of the hills and highlands on which Sadena on the Pacific North West was
established by the early arrivals and has grown to be a resplendent rendition
of city planning on this piece of the earth.
It was on one of those outings into nature that we
stood gazing down at a tube shaped object of subdued bluish-green travelling,
even at that distance and from a position on higher ground at immense speed and
there hardly was a sound heard other than that of a stiff breezing in the
surrounding trees. I looked at that speeding tube that seemed to stretch quiet
a distance and was there and suddenly had disappeared, with hardly a sound,
with fascination, wondering how it felt to steer it. That was my first sighting
of the "crawler" and a sighting that left strong impressions. As one
grew, a lot more of the world was seen, understood and filed into the
appropriate memory compartments, but first impressions do leave lasting impressions
on a child easily impressed mind.
Later I understood that with further developments on
material and chemical constituency developments, a lot had been achieved that
approximated nature in industrial processes of metal body constructions. Thus
the "crawler" by the time I had gone through the process of training
and gaining pilot certification was a thin wax-like structure coated with
layers of adaptive bio-chemical, layering that responded to the environment by
changing surface state to enable the best combination of assisted inner
controlled condition and environment interaction, opening and closing its body
wax-structure, to close the on-board conditions to the environment, absorb
adequate moisture, heat available and lock out undesired particles in the
external environment. It had become in a way the testing ground for dynamic
coating structures that responded with flexible atomic chemical composite
reaction to changing surface determinations of the material state, which were
composed employing nanotechnology to respond according to certain predefined
states.
On board these trains is the simplicity of clean
comfort perfected. The need to attain perfect weight to complement desired
dynamics have enabled development of sheet seats that conformed to the body
form of the occupants and enabled effective body support without compromising
comfort and relaxation on the long journeys. The windows with double glasses,
were inner angled at about.00675 degrees to enable forward viewing of wide
passing vistas as the train literally flashed through the marvellous mountain
terrain. The speed of the trains made all passing scenarios behind, therefore a
blur. The service personnel on board the train had conditioned themselves not
to look out of the wide windows that seemingly created a seamless merge between
the outside and inside, when facing backwards, for the vision distortion caused
a palpable sense of disorientation.
The concept of the world in your pocket had long been
accepted, if your reality focused on seeing the world or snippets of it on
pocket devices and flat screens. On board this train, some clever chap had been
able to couple roll-up TV screens attached to the underside of the seat tables
to receive direct GPS positioning tracker images of the geomorphologic sections
from the treetop to the magma section of any ground position the train had
reached at any time; it sure did make instant geologists of travellers who could
sectionally know the details of the nature and mineral deposits of any
traversed ground, nature of rock formations, as well as instantly transmitted
climactic records spanning a century with indications of marked variations from
the normal ranges. In addition to all the engaging interactive informational
programs and entertainment, most travellers once ensconced after a good meal in
their seats were on a learning trip through the vast and differing Canadian
landscape.
Gene manipulation led to some recessive gene
experiments that allowed several families of saber-toothed tigers to be set
loose in a part of the isolated wilderness of the lower mountain ranges,
catching a sight of these creatures in their natural habitat, for some was
worth the mountain joy ride.
Adequate space was created in the design of the
"crawler" to enable open room areas where, one could take a break
from sitting to exercise the legs, chat and be on a one's feet basically, other
than the dining rooms, these loosely termed “ventilation rooms”, enabled ease
of socialization for those thus inclined, or further contemplative imitation of
the perambulating philosopher of ancient Greece on board the
"crawler". These were necessary additions on these long journeys,
especially for the tourists who normally made the cross-continental trip a high
point of their Canadian experience. Required exercise space and what was
loosely termed ventilation zones were glass-panelled walls that offered an
undeniably impressive vista of the passage. These were spaces created with
leaning boards, that were adjustable, slightly sloping stools of highly
polished elk that allowed standing room position and ability to freely move the
feet and hold a cup of some liquid while holding a conversation, facing the glass
panels that opened into the passing landscapes. The interesting thing about
this ventilation zones was the effective employment of design to enable a sense
of room in a narrow tube, because the panelled glass walls bent into the
adjoining structure, presenting an almost all round view of the passing fields,
lakes, rivers, the occasional deer caught of guard, the flitting birds, nature
in pictorial frames of changing scenarios, it was the favourite place for
capturing images on photo devices.
In the driver's section is contained accommodation
with tiny cubicles where off-duty drivers could in that sense of the word be
very well at home. Four drivers kept an eye on the control panels and
interpreted satellite images of the rail up to 500 kilometres ahead. There were
normally hardly any problems of animals straying unto the rail system, since 50
kilometres ahead of the "crawler" an electromagnetic channel at both
sides of the track, created an invisible barrier that kept the rails clear of
all debris and objects, that were capable of responding to the pulsating waves
that hit any animal with sharp stabs of unpleasant strobes of invisible
electric waves and forced them of the track. Non-animate objects, however
presented a different set of problems that were resolved ingeniously. The
"crawler" generated a ram of air that would normally push every
object that laid on the track right off, with the exception of the rare
landslide that may block a track completely, which is where the satellite
images of the track ahead came in useful. The ion fission controlled engines
were monitored by complexly related computerized systems, which computer
systems were programmed to just about enable a hands-off approach to piloting
the "crawler".
I had been a pilot for about two and half years when I
first met Canderia. She was a child of the world, with lines stretching back to
pre-Colombian Indian heritage, a dash of African blood, a mixture of several
Aryan bloods, of which the expressive Italian of some faded past generation and
the French heritage of tasteful distinction made her a colourful person and a
true and well grounded North American. Being North American, over the passing
centuries means one had become a mixture of lost beginnings and meaningless
endings. The distinction of human groupings still remained, but beyond the
private world of groups, society had become organized around awareness that
other than humans striving to give their lives a worthwhile definition within
the circumscriptions of their generation, differences serve limited purposes in
defining the individual in the collective. She was employed as a time-gap
employee who worked part of the year while pursuing her graduate education in
Sociology of the Workplace at Edmonton University. I simply called her Candy,
though she thinks that is inappropriate, the long version of the name, she
asserted, gave her the personality dimension that expressed who she was, that
to her, is what a name gave her. And she insisted that the "e" in the
middle, be pronounced with an accent, with the stress pitched on the high note.
You don't argue with Candy you just played along, so I called her Canderia in
her presence and Candy to all my pals.
It was between the town of Galston and the last town
at the foot of the Intercontinental mountain pass of the Canadian Rockies just
when I had changed shifts and had made my way to one of ten ventilation rooms
for a view of the setting sun, that I noticed the honey-nut coloured
"prima donna", just pushing a coffee laden trolley with assorted
biscuits and cup cakes. I was momentarily stunned by the play of light of the
red, late afternoon sun and the unusual shade of this young lady. I took
occasionally glances, as she prepared coffee tray for an elderly looking woman,
who had drawn out a flex-stool from the panel and had an almost irresistible
urge to attract her attention. As these things often do happen, she finished
her tea service and looked right into face of the of "moi."
Apparently, she seemed conscious of how stunning she looked and was used to
drawing such quizzical looks of stunned attraction as I thought I had. Only in
later years, she told me, she merely saw a pathetic, boyish looking loneliness,
who was pretending to look casual. But she, just like me was strikingly
attracted to me instantaneously. So it happened that, my sun watching late
afternoon strolls into the ventilation, room ended up being many a biscuit
eating, giggling and getting to know each other afternoons that continued until
her buzzer sounded and she had to move on. That was how we met and continued to
meet just about every late afternoon for that entire trip. By the time the
"crawler" docked into the Atlantic North Eastern Nova Scotian city of
Almeida. We were addicted to each other. Just like it happens with just about
any person. There is always someone that is coded to click with you and
together, you see the world through your tinted lover’s eyeglasses.
I loved my job and Candy was a striving egregious
bundle of primed energy. Who filled all the necessary emptiness that my simple
straight forward life had. And certainly, there were many places that one could
think of. For me, the joy of existence was waking up early to see the light
shift of the dawn merging into the morning, the morning had a stillness to it,
the slow awakening of the day, I termed it. On the days that I was off-work, my
best off duty routine was to roll up the shutter and watch the morning
light dispersing its diaphanous rays in
colours light and weightless through the row of trees bordering the house. We
bought the house, after we got married, Candy and I, it was “a fine bungalow”
(one of those old words that had a sense of distant romantic feel to it), with
its wide front porch and the large glass back windows. Some smart "Aleck"
had designed these whole glass pane back walls that he deftly termed
"French-Canadian Sun Willows". As to why he added willows, remains a
mystery but the combination of rolling Venetian shutters interposed between the
double glass pane shields, with the added possibility of generating water flow
image patterns that could not be differentiated from the real thing without the
added problem of keeping them clean if real water was added made some sense to
the word willows.
The attraction of benign nature in bustling large
cities had given most large areas the feel of calmness that was often difficult
to comprehend given the hundreds of thousands that live in the cities, but one
that was dearly appreciated. Cities had been developed to have adequate
greenery that mellowed the large expanses of glass, metal and concrete, and
shades of earthy brick that most of these large population centres were built
with. Most people had acquired good sites on off-the-beaten-paths, since Hoover
cars become fashionable and their hydrogen driven engines were capable of
incredible speeds on straight stretches. These marvels of family transit were
virtually crash proof given the effective magnetic repulsion that could bring
any two as close as possible without their impacting each other. In those
occasions where several had come close at high speeds the scenario was
comically serious, without being tragic. Roads and paved streets added some
design relevance to settlement. Additionally road layouts, though not needed in
the actual sense of the word, enabled smoother rides, but way of passage in
these silent, sleek engines that actually boosted the purity of nature was
limited only by the imagine. It has been rumoured that some intelligent mind
had made adaptations to the basic design of the Hoover cars that made it
possible for him to ride the air to his 60th floor apartment. I guess that
fella must have rebuilt his entry way to enable him have his car close to his
domicile.
I have a laid back approach to life, seeking to focus
on the simple and straight, I have been lucky in the sense of being able to
pass all my required examinations with not more than the required efforts of a
stable minded youth till I secured the job on the "crawler". For me
it was not a dream job, it was a just a means to an end. One that enabled me to
have a dynamic working environment cutting across the wonder of God's earthly
rendition of profuse diversity.
As for the people who populated the landscape of my
time, they have I assumed what humans have always been seeking to find, a niche
to find sustenance through some form of paid employment. Creativity has always
been an appreciated social value and has in some instances through aggressive
business drive yielded mass social benefit. No matter how one smart one thought
one self to be, the sun had to shine on you just the right way for your sheen
to glint to disturb the masses. So many worked for the few who had the glint
and made the best out of it. The majority just settled into some defined fields
within which daily existence found expression.
I grew up in a normal household, where my dad read all
the time he was at home and my mum read all the time she had, and consequently,
I learnt early to enjoy the art of 26 alphabets contorted through assorted
minds to give expression to literary form. I was and continue to be fascinated
by written work as an art form where some determined persons with some
preparatory background knowledge painted words into meaning, The more complex
the text the higher interest it aroused and the further from the mundane the
more gifted the painter of words. Books provided an insight and an acerbic
sense of languid criticism that made very few things seem unusual and for that
matter impressive but I have been impressed by the simplicity of the fundamental
fiat of God's words. On the whole my disposition of quietly growing up in a
setting where the mind ruled led me towards a quite lifestyle, but I lived my
life to the full within the definitive boundaries of that lifestyle.
I could not tolerate vainness in any form and I would
have been greatly disturbed if anyone had considered me vain. I accepted my
circumstances and tried to make the best out of it. Especially considering the
uncertainties and despair of the middle term histories, which was what the 21st
to 23nd centuries were termed by the composers of the passing years. Following
all the turbidity of the nation systems, wise leaders arose and coordinated
resources to human needs and gradually evolved a system that was incomparable
to anything that had been before. The primary needs of all humans were
integrated into a provisional system that was balanced around populations and
has led to a world system where individual interests and mental capabilities
led one towards a line of employment. Robotics had been replaced by
self-serving systems that took care of what would have been classified as
menial tasks. Menial tasks were resolved at the mechanical and micro electronic
system serving level, requiring extremely high micro-engineering knowledge to
maintain operational efficiency of these army of environ-friendly, supportive
systems.
The coast of Nova Scotia is a rugged meeting point of
two defining elements; the land and the water -cold thundering and restless
Atlantic waves slamming against rugged coast lines- in between the harsh
coastline of rugged coastline, are splendours of sandy beaches that even the
biting cold could not take away from their outstanding beauty. There is a
beauty in nature, the wildness of it and its untameable nature that any effort
to change only ruins. It is that undefinable beauty that makes the
nature-appeal of “the crawler” through such vast stretches of untameable
landscapes the closest to heaven this side of the universe.
The stretch from the last large city of Montreal to
Nova Scotia is a joy of the awareness of the sturdy fragility of human
constructs against the rugged enduring nature of the earth. It’s beauty is of a
different composition than the imitations of it that humans attempt to etch on
its surface. The progress of mankind has humans brought nearer to nature than
further away from it. In effect the swing towards massive mangling of the
earth’s surface as indications of human development was a swing of ignorance
reacting to extreme pressure, when the tempo had slowed and extremities began
to swing gently back to centre position where the balance of physical construct
and social constructs and its massive romantic rush with massive concrete
structures had steadied, the slower pace of development in other parts of the
earth became a benefit as they sought to find the best integration of physical
construct set within imaginative mind sets to carve beauty from nature’s
storehouse. While the monstrosities of large structures were tamed to become
more responsive to human desires to be in tune with their environment.
It is a routine for me to take a ride on the urban
transit system from central station in Nova Scotia to the Walrus beach, a short
twenty minute swing and just watch the morning being born. This day, as I stood
on this empty stretch of God’s gift to man, like the other times, self
generating poetry of deep appreciation rose in
the minds creative chamber.
I walk on the golden
hazelnut creamy sand, the waves foaming as they rush up to the beach and draw
back again, finest art of the greatest creative designer, the beauty that
improves with age, the azure of the mid horizon waters of this great expanse
curving into the deep blue, above; the lacy clouds, changing patterns in transitional
states, in the blue sky reflected in the great waters in ceaseless motion,
functional beauty in the process of replenishing and renewing. The cycle that
mirrors in repetitive rendition, the smaller reflecting the greater, the lesser
an exquisite variation on a grander act, each reflection unique in its
reflection of the source and as the sea laden air rises with the smell of the
surf, a tingling ignored and only registered in the unconscious, something in
the knowing mind speaks to me only the way the first knower did know, when
knowing was just something that was, that, in the end is the beginning.
There is a time when the desire to understand, to seek
clarity in foiled logic, hold one’s attention. When one matures, one learns
that total belief without seeking for understanding at lower mental levels
serves the Creator best. His songs of praise rise with the early morning mist,
its sun and when even was come his songs of praise is the light that lights the
darkness, for God is worthy to be praised in the simplicity of the faith of a
child.
A sea gull makes a smooth dive and pans at a slight
angle to the sea surface as it dips into the blue waters. The birds, they had
preceded humans millions of years and would probably be around longer still. The
reflection had barely made its impression on my mind when a another voice made
its gentle presence felt. Clear to me as the waves making their everlasting
soothing sloshing sound. I wondered who was telling this story and then I just
got absorbed in its message : -
I wandered, like an
innocent going beyond the normal pastures to this nether regions, where the
only change is the unnoticed progress of time and the unceasing corrosion of
water and shingle. This is where one is at peace with oneself, even if only
briefly. There is a sudden disappearance of all things superficial and
transient on this virgin beach. They have remained unchanging in all the
changes of the coastal strip. Time is meaningless in this expanse where the
earth reveals a timeless face of astounding beauty. Like the best of the
beautiful, it is conceivable in the mind confirmed by the senses and inspiring
the creative element of the mind to be uplifted and to be sombre, all at once.
The latter causes a “letting go” of the other world and a gentle descent for a
while into the timelessness of seemingly everlasting.
It’s time to go back
to the city.
