Adventure with Trains

The wandering Tuji got on a rush-hour train. From time to time he felt if his package was still snug in the shopping bag. In the long journey he watched absent-mindedly a girl sitting across the carriage munching on a hamburger and another girl leaning on a rail reading a book titled the Northern Lights. (If this were a detective story this detail would be important.) Time passed as the trees rushed across the windows. One stop away from Tuji's destination. Yet the train came to a standstill. The passengers kept doing their own stuff. No announcement came.

Finally the passengers' patience wore thin. Tuji stepped out of the carriage. Crowds were forming. Roads started to congest as people sought alternative ways of going home. A train in the opposite direction sat still on the other rail. Other than that nothing could be gleaned. Tuji abandoned the train, left hurriedly to his rendezvous with little knowledge of what really happened. Tuji would read the news afterwards.

Who was the culprit?

Here is the anti-climatic answer. As this is not a detective story, I will leave the answer dangling. You are free to explore news sources.

The sky was bleak. The slanting sun still managed to pierce through thick clouds. The cold stiffened him. Tuji moved clumsily over boulders to a meadow beyond a gushing creek. Flocks of magpies were grazing.

Finally Tuji found people who were waiting for him. He took out the precious package. The contents had shifted during travel. The group shared the contents in delight.

The sun had set and the party was over. Tuji retraced his steps. The ripples of the disruption swept past the world. The train station then lay silent in the depth of night. While waiting for the train, Tuji started to doodle on his tablet. He had made several serious attempts in drawing this motif. He had made designs, looked up references and drawn somewhat; yet he was not satisfied with the outcome and no one else would ever see these botched attempts. On that platform in that dim light Tuji concentrated on a new design. Design ideas tend to come on the day of deadline after several days of struggle and the conviction of not being able to come up anything good. It felt precarious. Sometimes it is just how things work. Tuji cannot control inspiration, but he practises in order to be able to realise ideas when they come.

Time passed. The train arrived. Tuji hopped in with quickly sketched work. He thought random thoughts on the future development. At the terminal he transferred onto another train. Soon he would be home to get a good night's sleep. He grokked the fateful moment of getting off; yet he could not execute the action. As his hands snapped off the door, the moment was gone and the train took the helpless Tuji along to a northern land. Angular buildings flashed across the windows; colourful wheels spun. The journey decided to continue itself.