At dusk, Sam drives his stolen locomotive, and after crossing countless mountains and rivers that he can see every day, he sees the sea ...
(1)
Sam Lee was born in an ordinary farmer's house in a beautiful village surrounded by mountains; although small, the people living inside are plain, and everyone works hard every day. Like every village child, Sam grew up running around the village. Discarded wood was his toy; he often dragged long strips of wood through the village, writing and drawing on the ground. The sheep of the village's only shepherd were his playmates. He would always sneak in through the gap in the sheep pen at first light, startling the sheep into bleating and chaos before being chased out by the shepherd. Then he would run to the only trail leading to the mountains, wait for the coal miner's wagon to pass by, then jump onto the board immediately and follow it into the mountains. At dinner time, Sam would follow the loaded car and return home all dirty. He had few friends. Children a little older than Sam had begun to help the family to do some work, rarely free time to play, but Sam didn't feel lonely. He was just a kid. The small village could already hold his entire world for a kid no taller than an adult's leg.
After a few years of uneventful life, Sam came to the age of elementary school. Sam's father always felt he should let Sam go to school, but everyone in the village told him:
"There's no point in studying! Spend money to let this brat study, he will not want to go home to help farming!"
But Old Lee still took out part of his savings to send Sam to the school at the foot of the mountain, the only elementary school here. Heard that this school was a very famous seafarer to donate to construction. It was a spring morning, and there was still some unmelted ice on the path as Sam followed his dad to school. Only a few children are in the school, and no wonder the village is unwilling to send children to read. Because the village is not a wealthy place, having more children often means extra labor forces at home, then there is no other sense in spending more money on them. The always bold little Sam first came to school surprisingly timidly. He looked at the buildings that were different in the village and dressed differently than the teacher. Sam looked down at his mud-covered shoes and secretly rubbed his hands on his clothes before following the teacher into the classroom. From that day on, Sam seemed to change. He became much quieter, and his little stage shifted from the village and the mountains to the small school. He started to like to read, and every day after school, he would also read a book sitting under a tree outside the school, where he could look up and see the junction of mountains and hills in the distance. Far, far away, from time to time, there would be a smoking rectangle of iron across.
John, the school's only teacher, is a middle-aged man, almost 50 years old, who carries a sleek cane every day, wears round glasses, and a suit that no one knows how many years he has worn. You almost can't see the original color. He lives in a small house by the school. Every day after he locked up the school, he saw Sam sitting under a tree with a book. This day he tried to ask Sam what he was reading.
"Sam . . . Sam."
Sam didn't look up, as if he didn't hear.
John walked slowly toward Sam on his crutches. It wasn't until the shadows overhead covered the pages of Sam's book that Sam realized John was standing in front of him, looking down at him.
"Sir . . ." Sam tried to stand up in a hurry.
John waved his hand at him and sat beside him as well: "What book are you reading?"
"It's . . . I couldn't find the title of the book. The cover was torn off. It's about a mariner."
"I found it in the school library," Sam added.
John nodded and asked him: "Do you like this book?"
"Yes!" Sam's eyes flashed: "Sir . . . do you know where the sea is?"
John stroked Sam's little head, pointed to the smoking iron in the distance, and said:
"Look, that's the train. You ride in it. It will take you to the sea . . ."
This sentence seems like a tiny spark accidentally jumping into a container of hay. Sam looked at the train and felt his heart heat up, and his eyes warmed.
(2)
The sun was slowly dropping down into the mountains, and everything was slowly darkening. Then, a tall shadow suddenly sprang up at the side of a section of the abandoned railroad. He took advantage of the nightfall and quietly jumped into the long-abandoned locomotive. He took a kerosene lamp and looked carefully in the locomotive, knocking here, looking there . . .
This train has been abandoned for nearly ten years. More than ten years ago, the economy was depressed, and the village was affected in no small way. The weather was strangely bad for several years in a row. The harvest in the village was also not good enough.
On a warm full day, as if a huge golden paint can had been spilled, all the mountains and the whole village were drowned in gold. The tree in front of the school shed its leaves early in the year, leaving only the ground full of brown leaves that drifted to every corner of the school with the wind. Mr. John passed away during this time due to illness. He had no children; he came to the village school at some point and had not left since. There was no one else willing to teach at the school except him. The day the school closed, Sam, who was almost a young man, stood under the tree in front of the school, holding a tattered book in his hand. He watched the villagers take the school's tables and chairs home, supposedly to be used as firewood. The school door was unlocked, as if someone would return the next day. But Sam knew that wouldn't be the case, and he also might be coming to this place for the last time. He looked in the direction of the train again. It had been years since he had seen a smoking train pass far over the horizon. Sam took one last look at the school and then walked back down the path to his home. When Sam came home, he gradually began to help the family with some farm work. Like every ordinary teenager. He never mentioned anything related to studying again, and never saw the book in his hands, as if he had forgotten everything overnight . . .
"Sam! Sam! " came a shout from the dark grass, "What are you doing?"
Sam poked his head from the locomotive window. "Buddy, don't worry. I just wanted to see what this thing looked like inside."
"Time to go home and eat! Your wife should be worried." Out of the tall weeds emerged the shape of another young man.
Sam was now a mining worker, just digging coal for the village's use, and sometimes he would cut some timber and bring it back to the village. He has a beautiful wife, also from the village --a neighbor's daughter. They married three years ago and had a lovely son this year. Every morning, Sam gets up to prepare the tools and wagon before dawn to take into the mountains to dig coal. After eating the breakfast prepared by his wife and kissing his sleeping son, he drives the wagon to the hills in a hurry. He worked all day in the mountains and came home at dinnertime, often with a cart full of stuff, and occasionally he hunted in the mountains. The days were normal and peaceful. Sam's life is simple repetition. However, these days were different. Sam has been running to the abandoned railroad after work frequently.
"Why do you keep running here lately? What's so great about this abandoned railroad?" a fellow worker who was digging coal with Sam asked. His name is Eric -- a man who is a few years younger than Sam.
"Nothing. You do not need to come home with me this late. I'll come home later. I want to hunt for a while," Sam said to Eric.
Eric looked at him strangely, but did not say anything.
From that day on, Sam came home two hours late every day, and he wrote and drew at his desk before going to bed. No one knew what he was drawing, and he didn't say anything.
The sun rises and sets and rises again.
Recently the weather was getting colder and colder. Judging by the imminent snow, the air was often foggy during these weeks. Today is a rare sunny day, early in the morning but no fog at all. Sam finally made up his mind. He decided to steal the abandoned locomotive. He got up especially early in the morning, to pack a lot of tools in the bag. He didn't ride the wagon today, and before he left the house, he said to his wife excitedly, "Honey, I'm going out, and I may not be back for a couple of days. You can eat the hare I caught these days if you want." His wife didn't understand, but she still gave him a few days' worth of dry food to eat on the way. Sam kissed his son's head and then kissed his wife again. Then, with bright eyes and a glowing look, he hurried out the door.
Sam went straight to the abandoned railroad. He took the drawings he had made the other day out of his bag. Sam had been interested in trains since he was a child and had studied a lot of knowledge about trains privately on his own. After a while, he had roughly solved several problems of the train, and today he was going to try to drive the train.
He was very excited and nervous. His palms could not control the dense beads of sweat seeping out, making it less easy for him to hold the lever while operating. He was very hot and sweating all the time.
First press this button, then that . . . then that, then . . . pull this lever!
"Boom! —" the train made a loud noise, as if it was going to fall apart. But Sam got even more excited. His eyes were hot as if to shed tears. The train was moving! It was a miracle!
(3)
Sam operated the train, and he drove faster and faster. He remembered what Mr. John had said to him, or perhaps he had never forgotten: "The train will take you to the sea." The scenery outside the window was receding rapidly, and the green trees and grass were turning from one to another into a green patch. Sam opened the small window, then the wind blew in, gently brushing against his face. He wanted to sing joyfully but when he opened his mouth, he could not make any sound.
He kept driving and driving for two days and two nights. The yellowish sunrise ripped the dark sky slightly, and the sky gradually faded to a clear blue. Sam turned his head, looking out the window. He froze. He stared dead out the window, opened his mouth, he couldn't move. The next thing he felt a liquid coming out of his nose, and then his vision blurred.
It was the sea.
Sam saw the sea. The waves lapped the beach again and again, and the sun shimmered on the surface of the seawater like the world's most beautiful jewels spread across the land. Seagulls hovered over his sea, sometimes swooping down into the sea, and then picked up a fish from the water. The sea was so big that it stretched all the way to the end of the world, and the sky was connected to it. Sam laughed, and then cried. He had never felt such happiness. He looked hard at the sea, unwilling to blink, and it was as if he saw a ship in the distance, sailing on the sea, smoking white, the same as his own train. The sea reflection was so strong that Sam's eyes were in pain. But he was still looking at the sea as if to put the whole sea into his head. He could smell the smell of the sea wind, different from the wind in the mountains and forests. It was a salty, sweet taste --
like a dream . . .
(4)
A week passed, and it had snowed heavily in the mountains since Sam had left. All the vibrant colors were covered by the snow, and the world became a black-and-white picture all of a sudden, without a trace of miscellaneous color. Sam never came home. Sam's wife was getting worried, she always had a bad feeling. Today she calls Eric, who usually digs coal with Sam, and asks him to help her find out about Sam. Knowing the news of Sam's disappearance, Eric somehow thought of the abandoned train immediately. He rushed toward the train . . .
When they ran to the abandoned railroad, they found the train still parked in its original place.
They rushed into that locomotive and found Sam sitting on the ground, smiling, as if asleep. Eric walked over and tried to wake Sam up. But unfortunately, Sam had stopped breathing--Sam was frozen to death, his arms still clutching the tattered book.
Nicole Fu is a sophomore majoring in Illustration at the School of Visual Arts. "This story is a tribute to dreams and a song for dreamers," Nicole says.