On The Narrow Guage To Darjeeling

The two passengers eyed each other as the Darjeeling Express wound its way through the mountainous track. Muktee, the Indian, smiled and adjusted his legs under him as he watched the American with a curious eye. “What did you say your name was, Sahib?” Muktee used the old Indian term sarcastically knowing that the American would get the joke. It was obvious that his fellow traveler was experienced in travel on the railway especially since he was riding in the freight car and not one of the plush tourist cars.
“Is,” the American smiled back.
“What’s that?” the Indian didn’t catch the inferential logic.
In a half-assed English accent meant to augment the Indian’s use of the Sahib title, the American continued, “Darjeeling is my name,” he said, emphasizing the word is. “If my name was Darjeeling, I wouldn’t be here, right?” he kept on in the pseudo-English accent emphasizing the word was, stretching it out to the absurd.
Muktee was really interested now. Here was an American traveling in India with a false English accent whose name was the same as the destination he was headed for. “Darjeeling? Your name is Darjeeling?” Muktee pulled his head back to the side and gave that look of incredulity.
“Leftenant Stephen Darjeeling at your service,” the American gave the Indian the English salute. “Not really a leftenant, you know, I just always wanted to use the title. I never could understand why the English always said “Leftenant” and not “Loo-tenant” like the American pronunciation.”
“Yes, the English are peculiar in that way,” Muktee agreed, reaching into his shirt pocket for a pack of cigarettes, “Galwah?” he offered one to Darjeeling.
“No thanks, old chap, I don’t indulge in that particular vice, although there are others in which I do,” Darjeeling’s accent was beyond ludicrous at this point and Muktee was playing it to the hilt, too. Like they were in a Bollywood movie and the scene was moving along with the sway of the freight car stuffed with American and English tourist baggage.
Just then Darjeeling noticed some movement near one of the bags. There was kind of a hole in the freight car floor next to the gaudy American suitcase near his right foot. It was Darjeeling’s own Route 66 suitcase and it had nearly everything he owned in it. He liked to tell the story about how many times he had followed that suitcase as he jumped either from the ass-end of a CH-47 Chinook in Viet Nam or off of a beat up merchant marine ship in the Bahamas, throwing the suitcase out into nowhere and not knowing where his feet or the suitcase might land. Out of the hole a beighish white head popped out, two beady eyes and a forked tongue surveying their surroundings. Darjeeling recoiled, pulling his foot back and pushing his back as far as he could against the luggage behind him.
“Don’t move too quickly, Sahib,” Muktee laughed and then faked a look of terror that he probably learned in Bollywood. The look was so good it would have won at any film festival.
Darjeeling wasn’t acting, now that the snake began emerging from the floor hole and was making its way in the direction of his pantleg. He shifted some more. The snake stopped directly in front of him, a mere foot away, and he could now plainly see the black markings on the flared white hood.
“Don’t worry, Darjeeling, it is only Naga, the White Cobra, hardly anything to have a heart attack over. She is only curious and wants to get to know you better.” Muktee took a drag on the cigarette and blew the blue smoke at the crack in the freight car door and smiled, his eyes locked on the snake and the American.
Suddenly the snake lunged toward Darjeeling’s pant leg. He jumped up and fell onto the baggage behind him. The white cobra reared back again, bearing its one inch fangs and letting the black tongue hang below its lower lip. Then, looking directly into the eyes of the human in front of her, Naga slowly turned to show him the back side of her hood. He was terrified. The snake slowly moved away toward the hole in the floor. Darjeeling watched as she moved in an erect posture and kept her hood flared so he would remember the black, hour-glass marking forever. He felt a quick fever rising and he began to sweat as he watched her move gracefully and disappear into the floor. He looked at Muktee.
“Sahib, I am afraid you are not long for this world since Naga has graced you with her kiss and showed you her markings.” Muktee laughed out loud.
Darjeeling reached down and tugged the pantleg toward him, immediately noticing the two pin-pricks about an inch apart right below the knee. Quickly pulling up the trouser leg, he looked for the puncture wounds as he reached for his butterfly knife, pulling it out and opening it with a quick flip. The two, red wounds yielded to the blade of the knife as Darjeeling pulled it first across both of them and then down on each, allowing blood to flow freely out as he switched the knife to his left hand and squeezed on the wound with his right. His eyes were glazing and it looked like the room was filled with smoke. He heard voices. His heart began beating harder and faster and he could hear his pulse in his ears matching the chug of the engine as the narrow guage train pulled the last grade before the turnaround toward the Indian city of Darjeeling. Darjeeling watched in awe as he was now looking at himself from a distance of about three feet or so. He could see himself squeezing the bloody wound and the blood dripping on the floor of the train car. He thought he was dead. He reached for his arm and found it solid. He felt his face, shoulders, hands and legs confirming them all. Looking around he saw Muktee in the corner still smoking on the cigarette and carefully watching the sitting Darjeeling, evidently not conscious of the other standing Darjeeling. “Surely, I am dead,” he thought, but he noticed that the sitting Darjeeling kept moving and working on the wound, fully conscious. He realized then that there were two of him, one sitting on the floor and one standing. His fear of dying slowly left and he began to run through his usual logic sequence for unexplained happenings. He remembered the stories coming out of New Delhi in the 90’s about people using cobra venom as a vehicle for out of body experiences. A pin-head drop on the tongue was enough to initiate a ten to twelve hour journey into the mystical world of Indian myth. It looked like Darjeeling was about to take that trip.