Try to find and chat up the conductor

You set the journal under your arm and get up out of your seat with the intention of hunting down the conductor and see if she might be able to help you out in these trying times. Right now what you really need is for somebody to explain to you just what exactly is going on here. To prove that this is not the exceptionally unlikely case that this is some incredibly complex prank being played on you and that any minute now someone isn’t going to pop out from behind a seat with a microphone and a camera crew to inform you that you have been punked.

Your walk down the aisle in the middle of the train car is awkward at first, your pants feeling like they have shrunk by at least half a size. Huffing, you would not expect that the other you would be one to hate decent pockets or enjoy skinny pants and you curse them for it with every step for their choice in fashion.

Passing through the next smoky train car, you see a few people. A woman sitting reading a book by the overhead light. A pair of what looked like students going by their sailor style uniforms, both girls, their seats leaned all the way back and eyes closed, one of them softly snoring. An elderly woman reading a newspaper with the overhead light, smoking a cigarette, looks up at you through glasses as you pass by her.

“You should try smiling, sweetie.” She flatly states to you as you pass her.

“Sure.” You reply, a little bewildered by her unsolicited advice. You wander on.

You pass through another train car, sparsely populated by womenfolk. Halfway through it, you pause misstep. Racking your mind, you could have sworn that there had been a café car next to yours before you passed out. You also could have sworn that smoking was not allowed in the train either as a woman in a pantsuit lights up right there in the train car.

“Yes, handsome?” Asks a woman sitting next to you, lazily holding her sleep mask off her eyes and looking up at you.

“Ah, nothing.” You bumble and keep walking. You pass into the next train car, this one filled with compartments connected by a narrow hallway.

“Man,” you say, peeking into one of the little windows. Inside there is a group of well dressed middle aged women, drinks all around the table, and an unfamiliar card game being played. The sound is muffled but you can tell the conversation is lively. You move on.

Halfway down the hallway you meet a woman coming the other way, a young woman probably no older than 20 or 25. Short, with her brown hair done up in a bun. She stops as you approach.

“Oh,” she says, absentmindedly blocking your way.

“Uh,” you hazard, watching as her eyes wander down and back up slowly, sizing you up. You politely cough, “excuse me.”

“Oh, uhh, yes,” she bumbles, scooting to the outside edge of the hallway so that you and her can pass by each other chest to chest.

She does not take her eyes off of you for a second.

You keep walking down the hallway, feeling her eyes on your back the whole while in a way that gives you the heebie-jeebies. You pass through another car, filled with sleeping compartments, until you finally arrive at what a little sign informs you is the bar car. You feel your eyebrows climb a little; you’ll certainly trade a bar car for a café car while traveling any day.

Entering the bar car, you find it just about empty, the lights turned low and very moody, the rumble and rolling of the train muffled, but you do hear voices coming from the bar at the far end of the car.

You see the conductor leaning over the bar and chatting with another girl, a brunette with a narrow face, her hair cut into a bob cut just below her ears, and big eyebrows. The bar girl notices you first.

“Hey there, hun,” she says in a sickly sweet voice that hints at a heritage from somewhere in the Cumberland Valley, “I know the sign says the bar's closed, but I can open up the bar for you anytime,” she adds with a toothy grin.

“Is something the matter, sir?” the conductor says, bristling and standing up straight, putting her conductor’s hat on, and standing at the ready.

“No, everything is alright,” you say walking up, and the conductor visibly relaxes, “but do you remember that you told me to come ask you if I needed anything at all?”

You see the bar girl’s eyebrows go up a hair as she looks at the conductor.

“Yes, I do,” the conductor says, absentmindedly fixing her tie, face red, “so what is it that you need from me?”

You pause, thinking what exactly you need from her.