C.P.R.

I was sweating. The room wasn't hot, but I was. Heat generated from my own knowledge that he was near. Just on the other side of that wall. I couldn't hear him at the moment, but that only meant he hadn't moved. Neither could I. We had trapped each other, in effect, in this tiny apartment. Perhaps if I crashed through the door. But I didn't know what else he had in there, some kind of weapon perhaps.

It had begun innocently enough. On a green summer's day. The park was full of the usual complement of summer people. Walking, cycling, out on the grass with a book. Skaters rattled down the paths, children gave their cries of delight. I was having none of it. It was a grey day for me, in my own little surround. I watched, I waited, I feared the assault that would never come. There was no rational basis for my feeling; if I could have reasoned it out at that moment I would have known this. But the insides listen to no reason. I was afraid, and was ready to react to it. I found an empty bench that seemed far enough away from people. There was nothing to read, damn, and no pen for my notebook, so I was forced to look at the world. This displeased me despite the beautiful day. All I could do was feel my facial muscles, and try to force them into some expression that was not sourest rage. It was not working.

As I tried looking in another direction, at a dog chasing a squirrel up an exceptionally large maple tree, he sat down. Suddenly I felt his presence and flinched. Though I had tried not to leave any space on the bench, this only made him closer. "Hi there," he said.

"I'm not interested in company." I replied.

"Why be so unfriendly?"

"Look, can you leave me alone?"

And on like that. It was a true misconnecting. He would not accept my not wanting to talk with him. Out of pride, I did not want to leave the bench. I thought of pushing him off. This might make a scene. An elbow in the side was more discreet. He flinched, but did not leave. "What does it take to get you away from here?" I asked.

"All right, I'll go," he said, but made no move to do so. I was about to give him a terrific final shove, when he stood up and I went sideways off the bench, onto the bottle-cap strewn patch of bare earth the bench was mounted on. Not far from me was the garbage can, its smell identifiable from this distance.

"You'll pay for this," I said to him under my breath.

How could I know he was a friend of my roommate's? That was how he had identified me, and come up to sit. For some reason he had not thought it necessary to make this fact known to me. He had taken it for granted. But I was not observant that day, and now I was paying for it, sweating in a room with him on the other side of the door, locked in with my train set.

I could hear it running now, the faint hiss of the miniature wheels on rails, the growl of the electric motor. He was running it! Against all of my wishes. I wanted to go in there, turn off the train, but any move that I made might put the set at risk. I had considered shutting the power off, and rushing the door, but that might still give him time to hurt the set, and perhaps I could not find him in the dark. There had to be a solution.

"Ben," I called through the door (that was the bastard's name). "Do you want a beer?"

"You could have done that a week ago. The time for beers is over."

Now that was disappointing news to hear. I felt like a beer, but did not dare go to the fridge to get one. He could go nowhere, anyways. We were joined by mistrust, though separated by the door.

"Can't you give me back my train?" I asked.

"No. The train is all. Brian said you had it, and I wanted to see it. But you were unfriendly to me in the park."

Brian, the roommate. My now ex-friend. The park, that awful park. Why had I stopped in it, to let it hurt me. I should have stayed with the train, because the train was all to me. Instead I abandoned it, went off to places like the park where I could feel miserable, and now I was about to lose the train. Life was unfair in these ways. Some times you don't know what is most valuable to you until on the verge of losing it. I used to follow the train around with my finger, watching it circle the track on the carpet, the set of two cars and caboose rocking in behind. I could put toy blocks on the flatcar or make a barrier up ahead. The cat used to chase the train; that was why I had to get rid of the cat. I was not used to sharing. And now this man had my train, and he was not about to give it back.

The door opened. "Don't you want to see it run?" He was in the doorway. I considered rushing past him, pushing him out of the way and slamming the door, but there was no hope of getting by. I hoped the expression of naked hate on my face might be enough to make him give up.

"I - don't - like - you."

That was enough for him. He collapsed onto his knees, crying. That was my chance. I jumped over him, into the other room. "I never meant to be a bad person," I could hear him saying, muffled by his own hands. I wasn't listening. I was looking at my train, going around and around on the track. Though nothing was physically harmed, something about the train seemed different. It was then that I saw it. He had attached a new car to it. A tender, with the letters "C.P.R." on the side.

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