Death by Chocolate Jacobus Marthinus Barnard

The train was coming. Everyone could feel the heat of it in their bones; hell was surely rolling into town like low-lying thunder on a humid dusky night. The fate of this town was decided as soon as the men, women, and children settled this dust pot out of desperation and basic human greed. The nails holding each and every store and house together were sewn in by the blood of innocence and the sweat of sinners. We all came to the West looking for something better. Looking for money, gold, freedom, a lawless existence. But we got more than we bargained for. The railroad was finished and with it came the Wild West's end. A train was coming. Coming into our town looking to sweep up our lost souls with it. Gold doesn't mean one damn thing in the face of death. The devil cares not for man's desires or material bargains. He wants his payment in life and he's surely gonna get paid in full when the train comes to collect. My dear sweet Maudlin was fixing up the end for us. Right on our cast iron stove in the one room shack we call home. The moment we got wind that our town was next we headed down to the corner store and purchased ingredients for our last earthly delight. Some might say we were taking the yellow belly way out, but from where I stand, it was a mercy most in this town wouldn't afford themselves. Not that any of them didn't deserve what was coming for them. After all, the people are the reason for their own stunted lives. Just earlier this mornin' when I got the sordid news from the little yeller boy, he was screamin’ mighty hard about the fate of the town before ours. He said, “It’s a comin’ at midnight! She’ll steam into town with her fires raging! Not a human in sight of her! Like hell on a train,” the boy hollered with such conviction. Most of the townspeople that were within earshot stopped to take in the news. Many emotions shadowed the haggard faces of the working class. Most of us realized that fate had finally broken our time glass and there was no running anymore. No amount of begging on our knees, jewels, or good etiquette would save us now. We had done peed in the coffee. The first low whistle blow pulled me from my thoughts. Maudlin’s head whipped up from where she was baking to gaze with wide eyes out the little kitchen window. The temperature had taken to rising a little with each passing minute.

When I was a boy, my Gran would say that if you counted the seconds between thunder claps you could tell how many miles a storm was from your home. I thought vaguely that maybe the same method could be applied to the train’s tune. “You don't think it's here already, do you Edgar?" Her soft, docile voice spoke up and I breathed it in quietly. Soaking up the last of Maudlin. It reminded me of regrets, and what man doesn't die with plenty of those? But she was never one of them. Maudlin was scared, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't shaking in my boots a little too. But there was nothing to be done now. She turned from the stove with a small rounded cake and two dingy forks in hand. Setting the small dish on the table, the mud-colored homemade icing’s contours from the sweep of a knife glistened in the candlelight. The chocolate cake was our last meal. She took the seat in front of me and we both sat in silence with our thoughts. I reached across the wooded surface to clasp her hand in mine as my other went to grasp a fork. She squeezed back. The first bite was hesitant as I was almost too ashamed. I took the cake into my mouth, savouring the luxury, swallowing the relief. Another whistle blow. Very close this time. Her hand tightened on mine, our skin going ghostly from the vice grips. A heightening in the air was thick as the blood pumped faster in our veins. Fear is a twisted bitch. A few more bites and I knew in my alcohol-crippled gut that it was time to don our Sunday bests and walk to the tracks. I stood up, laying my fork down gently. Pulling Maudlin alongside me, we went to the chest and found our clean casket wear. We both were slow getting dressed; some small part of me hung on to the seconds and willed them to slow even more so we never had to leave the comfort of our home. We stood staring at one another, dressed and nowhere near ready, but no one is ever ready for death. She held such an ache in her spring water eyes, I could only kiss her forehead in reply. No words could ever soothe.

People walked out of their homes as another whistle blew, us among the mass. The quiet almost brought a chill to the air and my hair stood on end. The church to our backs I said a silent prayer as we trudged through invisible quicksand. We stood lined up, all facing the wooden and iron pattern embedded upon the ground. The heat was a visible wave in the air, an entity of immense mass that seemed even hotter than the sun on our worst days. We could melt together, surely. The tracks shook and groaned and the head of a black engine came into our view. The line tensed as we stood shoulder to shoulder. Some cries could be heard, low murmuring from those who wanted their last words spoken now. Collectively, as the train drew near, so did a heat that clogged lungs. We all attempted to inhale oxygen that was swallowed up from the air as our chests heaved frantically. Sparks of fire flowed from the windows and engine room up towards the sky in streaking licks of solid heat. Children screamed like murder. It was here. I never knew what to expect from a death, but as the train swished down the tracks, it was faster than I’d ever seen a vessel that big go. It slid past the first of the line. It seemed as though an invisible force rushed through their bodies and made dust of them. Time went at a snail’s pace and the molecules that made each of us separated like blowing ash from a pipe. They became the very dirt we all once dreamed and wished upon. As the line went up in fantastic fireflies the rest of us waiting felt our shoes fuse us into submission. There was certainly no running. Our cake was of no use, we would die by the light of a burning train. It is whispered that death takes on many forms, but the only certainty is we will all meet him. Earlier this day I had been sure our last earthly delight would be our last gift to our human forms, a close to well-lived lives. And now I had one more regret to set on my libra scale as the trains presence finally caught up to me and suddenly the chill snapped my skin and ground my bones, but peace was all I knew as we washed away with the wind.