This is a linkpost for https://jbostock.substack.com/p/prologue-train-crash
Epistemic status: fiction, satire even!
I am writing a short story. This is the prologue. Most of it will just go on Substack, but I'll occasionally post sections on LessWrong, when they're particularly good.
At some point in the past, canals and railways were almost equals: each had their merits and drawbacks, and their various proponents were fierce rivals, battling for the right to drag Britain forward into the industrial age. That was a long time ago.
On the day that the wreckage of the South Western passenger train (and the freight car with which it had collided) fell unceremoniously into the Grand Union canal, the waterways of Britain were mostly populated by quirkily-named and quirkily-decorated houseboats. The past took one last bite out of the future, with a gulp of rushing water.
Most canals are just a few meters deep, but on this particular day the intervention of an unnaturally strong rainstorm had flooded the canal, connecting it with a nearby wetland and filling the area with stagnant water and sucking mud. One middle section of train — an unassuming second-class carriage — cracked like an egg in the beak of a crow, and out of it fell two whirling, flailing bodies.
The first wore a green-blue fleece and dark chinos, was tall, handsome, and if he were not falling into a canal he would have carried himself with a poise and confidence uncommon among recent graduates. The chinos did not particularly matter; what did matter was the contents of their front left pocket: a golden disk stamped with a date four years in the past, and the letters I-M-O. He grasped at nothing, until his hands grabbed the collar of the other. This one wore a button-down shirt an inch too long for his bomber jacket, and a pair of incongruous and fading jeans. He would not have carried himself with much poise or confidence, but at this moment he was kicking his legs with remarkable grace and ferocity. Unfortunately, this didn't make much of a difference. The two of them, clutching one another, sank faster and deeper than two human bodies should be able to sink.
After a minute or so underwater, the tall one gave up on not drowning. To his great surprise, as his lungs filled with water he did not go unconscious, but felt a great sense of lightness. He saw (and it also surprised him that he could see anything) that the other one had also surrendered, but though \textit{he} was not calm; instead he was frantically gesturing to the tall one's front pocket, where the golden disk was emitting some sort of light through the fabric of his trousers. When he took it out, he realized it was not merely glowing, but shining a distinct cone of light out of its back face (which bore an image of some forgettable central European architecture).
In the gloom, he saw around them the debris from the crash. The freight cart must have been carrying stationery -- which made sense since it, like the men, had been headed for London, that black hole city to which graduates of the great English universities (both of them) are inexorably drawn — since they were sinking downwards in a whirl of paperclips. At this point, he assumed that he was in some stage of hypoxia-induced hallucination. This was what both of them would believe until they compared stories at a later date and found that their experiences were a perfect match.
They were sinking through a tunnel which descended farther than even the light of the medal could penetrate. The walls were visible, and seemed roughly smooth, but what was more remarkable was the speed at which the walls were moving past them. The short one held him by the arms, and their eyes were locked on one another, until they suddenly found themselves falling through air.
The water had fallen through a hole in some ceiling, into an underground chamber filled with air, and as it did so it broke up into a shimmering mist. There was another light now, coming from far far below them as they fell through the air, and the two of them looked down to see what appeared as a pitch-black ball, surrounded by a whirling, shining ball of gas. With this illumination, it became clear to him that they were inside the earth.
The shapes of the continents were sketched across the ceiling, huge patches of white stone against an ocean of black. Across these continents, there were other streams of water pouring down from the ceiling.
"Bloody hell!" he yelled, and did not hear a response. "That one's coming from Mumbai! And that one's Tokyo! And that one must be New York!" as he pointed to a particularly ferocious waterfall, which was lit from within by a crackling lighting. Then his eyes scanned across the backwards America, to the west-now-right-hand coast, where there was a torrent coming from one area that put the rest to shame. In this deluge were a multitude of enormous figures, all striking and wrestling one another, as they tumbled down towards the void at the center of the earth.
"Look!" He yelled "Look!" but he saw that the short one had let go of him with both hands, and had jammed his palms into his eyes. He yanked at the man's collar with such force that his hands were jerked away from his face. The short one glanced around, looked utterly pallid and on the verge of sobbing, and went to cover his face once more.
"I command thee! Look!"
And with the golden disk still in his hand, he struck his companion square in the face. In the flash of light that followed, the whole illusion was broken, and both men found themselves once again submerged in the cold waters of the canal.
Even the most expertly managed waterway reaches the ocean eventually. This is a general principle which is unaffected by arguments over particular instances. And in this particular instance, the canal drained out into the Thames, which empties into the North Sea. The men remained underwater for the entirety of their journey, with the tall one still holding the short one's collar, the short one still kicking his legs like mad, and both of them screaming bubbles. Each time they reached a sluice gate, or a weir, or a lock, a flash came from the tall one's free and now empty hand, and the obstacle was cleared. After perhaps a few hours, they lay in the mudflats on the north side of the river, which are alternately hidden and exposed as the Thames rises and falls. They had washed up right next to the Isle of Dogs, a place once consecrated by the prophetess Margaret.
A businessman walking along the sea wall noticed them, and ran down onto the banks of the river. Thick black mud soaked into his suit and shoes as he knelt down to inspect the two unconscious bodies.
"Lucky the tide wasn't higher! You two might have been swept out to sea!"
