Last Train from New York

I’m pleased to announce my latest piece has appeared in Corvus Review 6; you can read it here: http://nebula.wsimg.com/47de969e212ebf15837556bcc515fc67?AccessKeyId=3C22B84D674D5BA7A77D&disposition=0&alloworigin=1

As usual when I have a story published, I give a few hints as to what was going through my mind here. “Last Train from New York,” in addition to being one of my most rejected stories, is also one of my favorites. It’s personal.

While I’ve never been on a haunted train, knowingly, the story came to me through a confluence of unfortunate events. I lost a job quite unexpectedly—my first job in New York City. The story is primarily about how it feels to lose a job. This particular trauma was my third professional job lost because of circumstances.

Yep, that’s blood.

The story also has roots in reality. Once, on a New Jersey Transit train, my family jumped on board the first car. We were on our way to the airport and didn’t want to haul our luggage along to the upstairs or downstairs seating area.

While sitting here, right behind the conductor’s cabin, the panel to the electric room kept creeping open and slamming shut. It sounded like a haunted house door, and we could stare inside at the guts of the machine. It was eerie on quite a few levels. This continued the entire trip.

The ticket-taker kept coming up between stops to talk to the driver. We could see only the driver’s feet and hands. The main elements of the story, if you’ve read it, suggested themselves. All they required was some fictionalization and the blending in of the worthlessness a worker feels at being let go from a job after a positive review.

I still work in New York. I’m very circumspect about my job. But I now take a bus to work. Just in case.

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K. Marvin Bruce

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