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LITERARIA: "Now the whistle was no more a harbinger of happy
times; rather a sad, nostalgic reminder of a past  that was 
nothing more than a figment of his imagination."

Metalloid
Steel Heart, Steel Body
By Umer Siddique
Thursday, October 23, 2008

He puffed a thick plume of steamy white smoke out of the rusty, metallic chimney perched at an angle on his head like some burlesque hat. The smoke slowly drifted away with the evening breeze, drawing countless indescribable shapes in the air and writing strange cryptic messages across the darkening sky. The railway station was unusually quiet that day and the life seemed to have come to a momentary halt. On moments like these he would fall into a deep reverie…

His presence in the world was no more than those clouds of smoke that spewed out of his steam valve, reminding every body of his presence momentarily but then disappearing in the air; dispersing to distant, forlorn places with the eddies and currents of the breeze. How many sighs, how many dreams, how many fantasies, how many yearnings- all wafted about aimlessly in the form of these foggy hieroglyphs in the distant valleys and desolate wildernesses for no one to understand.
 
He often wondered if it was his poetry- this white smoke emanating from the inner chambers of his fiery, metallic heart- his mode of expression; perhaps a source of catharsis for him.

Being an old metallic beast, a quaint steam railway engine, wasn’t all that easy after all, he often mused. One appeared so cold and heartless to others for no one knew about the inferno that raged inside his metalline being. But that was only a part of the tragedy of his existence.   

His forehead still bore the date and place of his birth several decades ago at a mechanical workshop where dozens of workers created his powerful being, his iron constitution and his metallic hull. He had distant and vague memories of being affectionately adorned by them and being smothered with soothing, balmy metallic polish. It appeared as if they loved their creation and admired both the mechanical beauty and might of their affectionate handiwork. Who knows, it was perhaps them who had secretly planted a heart in his metallic chambers. But no one could tell.

Times had changed and so had he. The figures etched across his forehead seemed to have been worn out like some distant, spectral memory, eroded by the flux of time. One had to strain one’s eyes to discern the faded script that alluded to some vague historical event. The sparkling glint in the once bright gleaming lamp that adorned his forehead was long gone- a rusty, sooty, dark object was all that was left of the once most striking feature of his being. His steel frame seemed fragile and vulnerable now- it appeared as if it had grown mallow with time. His entire frame jangled and rattled in a jarring dissonance every time he moved, creaking and squeaking at every effort he made. He lived in the cacophony of his own imperfections. He looked like the artifact of some aboriginal workmanship-some forgotten footnote to an archaic age.

The cheerful whistle that once announced his arrival and attracted dozens of children around the tracks was now replaced by a doleful horn that echoed the emptiness of his fragmented mechanical shell. Now the whistle was no more a harbinger of happy times; rather a sad, nostalgic reminder of a past that was nothing more than a figment of his imagination. The children no more gathered around the track to hail his arrival. They had long grown up and gone with the winds of time. He had lost the romance of his existence and so had those who once admired him.

He had labouriously towed thousands of people in his life in the drab, silent trolleys attached to his back, to their loved ones and away from them. He had witnessed countless emotional partings and rendezvous in his life- sights that at times almost melted the crucibles of his metallic heart. Nobody could ever imagine that his metallic heart contained such a sea of emotions. Looking at some of the listless face that he came across at the railway station, he would often chuckle to himself for he knew he had more of a heart than some of the people he carried on his back. Who says machines do not have a heart. But that too was only a part of the tragedy of his existence.

When he brooded over these abstractions, away from his mechanical work, he puffed out very thick clouds of smoke and the firemen had to shove in loads of firewood and coal in the boiler to keep him going. The firewood and coal that had been fed in his fire-hole over the decades perhaps contained the remnants of the freedom of some dead wild animals that roamed free till their dying days. The fumes of their charred legacy infused his being with strange feelings and quite often, the sinews of his metallic heart seemed to give way to the warmth of these emotive sensations, conjuring up strange dreams before him.

How he would have loved to roam free in the green fields that he used to transverse so often; scale the snow capped, misty mountains he passed on his way; splash his way through the cold, pristine water, taste its cold vintage as he crossed over it on the railway bridge; feel the evening breeze wafting about on the green prairies; watch the evening sun go down, bathing and basking in its golden rays; behold the twilight dancing where the sky and the earth embraced each other- how he would have loved it all. How he yearned and dreamed of all these pleasures. But he was a slave- a vassal to the course of the two metal tracks that defined his very existence and essence. They were his destiny. He knew he would die cherishing these dreams in his metallic heart. And that was the tragedy of his existence.

 He dragged wearily the load of sightseers to these natural marvels but could never relish them himself. The happy crowds would simply jump off his back and merrily make their way to the mountain tops; meandered their way through the fields; picked delightful flowers that waved and swerved about merrily in the grasslands; tasted the juicy fruits of the exotic trees- leaving him drowned in the sea of fretful misery with the heat of unfulfilled desires pulsating the sinews of his heart. How he longed to follow them. How he longed to break free from the prison of his own destiny-the cage of his existence. How callous of them, he often wondered. They would not bother to thank even once the metallic beast that brought them there, straining his every tendon, every inch of his constitution, bearing the pangs of the metallic pain that surged through his body as he huffed and puffed on. What ingratitude, he often vexed.

On moments like these, he would puff out thick clouds of black smoke out of vengeance and desperation that would vent out the fury brewing in the latent depths of his fire-hole. His whistle would be very shrill on occasions like these, like a beast whithering with pain. How he longed to break free!
 
…His train of thoughts was interrupted by the footsteps of a few people that came out of the station building. He glanced at them and guessed from their overalls that they were the engineers from the workshop where he was born. Had they come to thank him for all these years of selfless service he did and pains he endured, he wondered. But he could discern no glint of affection in their eyes, no signs of recognition. Those who had created him were long dead and those who stood in their shoes needed him no more. He meant nothing to them. He was a chunk of useless, noisy metal for them. They cast a few nonchalant glances at him and then shook their heads in unison. Instinctively, he knew the moment of truth had arrived. He had no time to fret over the thanklessness of the world as the images of freedom that he had cherished for so long unfurled in a wild spree before his eyes. He was nearing his freedom at last. The iron chambers of his heart throbbed with apprehensive excitement.
 
He was detached from the compartments which he had carried on his back all his life. Now that the moment of freedom had come, strange sparks of pain emanated from his entire frame on parting from those tracks that had enslaved him for so long and those silent passenger compartments that he had so laboriously dragged all his life. He cast a last glance towards them, wondering whether to love them or hate them after such a long association. He was no more a serf to the prison of those tracks- at least that is what he thought.

He was hauled to the same workshop where he was first made. The engineers tore his constitution apart to cannibalize it for other engines that drank diesel and made angry jarring noises- keeping all their thoughts to themselves as they emanated no steamy, white smoke. Times had indeed changed.

They melted the fire-chamber, the boiler and his metallic heart and melted all the dreams that it contained into molten magma. The molten chambers of his metal heart and all the desires and dreams it had, were taken back in a huge metallic crucible to the railway station. Then, they were spread over the railway tracks worn out by years of his toil like a thin layer of chocolate, to make them smooth for the other trains.

Life is so sad.    

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