Jenson Birchfield could never make up his mind. Like this morning, he wasted an entire half hour evaluating the pros and cons of wearing his bright neon shirt. He had forgotten to do the laundry so he was down to just two shirts, one a drab brown and the other neon green. If he wore the brown, he would obviously be taken as a dull and tasteless person for the interview at Partonsville this afternoon. But if he wore the green, he might cause someone to get distracted and cause some pointless blunder. He had wasted so much time that he almost missed the train that would take him to his interview. When he finally glanced up at the clock he flew into one of those crazy moods that one usually gets when he forgets to look at the clock and then realizes that he is about to miss a very important occasion. Jenson flew around the room making last minute arrangements. He was just about to head out the door when he realized that he was still shirtless. He raced back to the bed, grabbed his green shirt, and just barely made it in time to catch the 10 o’clock train to Partonsville.

Barton Chrysler never liked to make up his mind. His policy was to delay a decision as long as possibly possible. Barton, a fat, round faced man, sat in his ancient ambulance trying not to make up his mind. The creaky, paint-chipped ambulance was the topic of indecision. The brake fluid was low. He needed to get that fixed. But the tie rod was also on the “needs repaired” side of scale. Stopping verses steering were well matched challengers. Barton tried to ignore the fact that the whole ambulance was on the “needs repaired” side. The hot sun of July glared through the window even though it was only 9 o’clock. The sun rose quickly in Nedsbury. In this small town there were never many clouds, and the fact that Barton’s ambulance was parked right in the sun didn’t help beat the heat.

The rustic town of Nedsbury nestled itself right beside a mountain. The mountain was so tall that no one wanted to climb its peak and see what name was written on the sign at the top. A winding and turning dirt road curved around Mount Unidentified and led to the large, smoggy city of Partonsville. The train track ran along the other side of Mount Unidentified and was also a route to the city. This was the more scenic route, or, as Barton had experienced first hand, a more stomach-knotting one. The road and the tracks, on these opposite sides of the mountain, were the only access the little town had to the outside world.

Now Barton was trying to ignore the heat of the ambulance (he couldn’t remember the AC ever working) and that the brake fluid needed filled and that the tie rod needed fixed. To top it all off, he was trying to ignore the fact that he was ignoring anything at all. That was a lot to ignore, Barton thought, dismissing this thought immediately. 

The sun threatened Barton. He figured that if he stayed sweating in the ambulance, ignoring everything, he would be as cooked as the grilled bacon he had had for breakfast. So, after a lot of ignoring his indecision, he yielded and drove over to Tod’s Tie Rods  to fix the tie rod. He picked this instead of the brake fluid for the simple reason that Tod’s Tie Rods had air conditioning, and McGrubstake’s Brakes did not. Either way, this decision would not change the day’s events.

Mr. Morton Pegaso had no difficulty making up his mind. He believed that if you did what everyone else was doing then you could not possibly make a bad decision. It never occurred to Morton that most people made strange and illogical decisions, like dying their hair. Just because everyone else is doing something does not mean that it is correct or comfortable. Just because everyone is walking backwards doesn’t mean that this is better or more covenant than walking the way every sane human being should.

Morton was about as ordinary as they come. This meant he was a strange and illogical person like most of society. The only truly original thing about him was his fingerprint.

At this very moment Morton was looking at people’s feet. In the train station there were plenty of feet bustling around this way and that. He was in the process of swapping his shoes. It was a strange fad in the town of Nedsbury to wear your shoes on the opposite feet. This led to lots of tripping and blisters. But everyone else was doing it, so that must be the better way to wear your shoes. Morton fastened his shoes again, not wanting to be abnormal. 

Morton was on a weekend holiday to Nedsbury (everyone else was traveling here), but it was time to head back to the big industrial city of Partonsville. He could take the train or the bus back to the city. What was everyone else doing? 

People filled the station to catch the 10 o’clock train and the 10 o-clock bus to Partonsville. Because Nedsbury was a small town, the train station and the bus station were combined. The ticket lines for both ran parallel through the waiting area. The smell of the Talluto’s Tacos stall filled the air. Shouts and whistles preparing for the arrival of the Partonsville train were barely audible above the hubbub of the crowd. Morton was walking right at the edge of the train platform quickly making up his mind.

He decided to take the Partonsville train because there were more people in that line. He had started to walk in the direction of the crowd when he spotted something out of the corner of his eye. A man, obviously color blind, was wearing a stunningly neon shirt. It was the most neony shirt that Morton had ever seen in his entire life. Why had this man chosen to wear such a bright color of shirt? No one else was wearing shirts like that. “This man obviously had problems making decisions,” Morton thought. The shirt seemed to glow with celestial brightness leaving the rest of the station looking rather dark.

He was so busy gawking at the unearthly glare that he tripped on his fallaciously worn shoes. Even if he would have worn his shoes the correct way he still would have tripped, because a trash can had sneaked up in front of him. He tumbled head first, into the trash, his legs flipping upwards. Then, because trash cans are not made for catching falling people, the trash can toppled over. It spilled the trash all over the platform and Morton all over the tracks! The first thing that came to Morton’s mind after getting back onto the train platform was, “Oh dear! No one else is falling into trash cans, I have been abnormal!” Hoping that no one had seen his blunder, he quickly gathered himself back together and marched to the ticket line.

Ms. Sara Magirus could always make up her mind. She had always known what to do because it was always the exact opposite of what everyone else was doing. This usually marked her as a weird outlier, but sometimes it set off major fashion trends. Like the time she had visited this very town of Nedsbury, she had worn her shoes on the wrong feet, and it immediately caught on. But now she was wearing her shoes correctly in contrast to this new fad. She was the driver of the Nedsbury bus because no one else would apply for the job. Every day she shuttled people from Nedsbury to Partonsville and back. The unpaved dirt road forked off from the train tracks and went on the opposite side of the mountain. Her bus was also unusual. It was lime colored and in the shape of a lemon – like the hot dog cars that sell hot dogs, except, she wasn’t selling lemons.

She was not getting many travelers today. The people traveling to Partonsville were obviously newcomers. Once they had been on that train for five minutes they would wish they had never made the decision to set foot on it. Every local Nedsburyian knew that if you took the Partonsville train, and you made it, you would get off two pints lighter. The two pints would be lost out a window somewhere along the way.

Sara was so absorbed in her thoughts that she almost tripped over a man, who had obviously tripped over the trash can. You might find this surprising, but this happened quite often. The trash can, and whoever tripped on it, got knocked over at least three times every day. But no matter how many times someone fell, the amusement Sara felt from it never diminished. She was so glad that someone would go out of their way to do something as abnormal as that. She picked up a broom setting against a pillar. It had been placed there because of its daily use cleaning up the spilled trash. The man hadn’t done the usual stunt of tripping on the trash can. He had gone above and beyond by diving, head first, into the trash and then, as a grand finale, flipping himself and the trash off of the train platform and onto the tracks. Sara started to sweep. No one else was cleaning it up, so she decided to do it. Despite her sweeping, she still did not alter what was about to happen. 

The man scurried back onto the platform and marched toward the train ticket line with an expression that clearly read, “Oh dear! No one else is falling into trash cans. I have been abnormal!” Sara pitied the conformist and finished her task. She had now cleaned up all the trash, or so she thought. She didn’t see the grey soda can that had clattered and camouflaged itself onto the far train rail. Unknowingly, Sara hurried to her bright lemon shaped bus, and prepared to leave the station.

Mr. Gorge Devaux never made up his mind. He believed that no one ever truly made up their mind anyway. Every decision was only determined by fate. Today fate was against him, he felt it. So, there was no point in deciding to take the bus or the train, fate would have its way, no matter what. He would have to take some means of transportation, Gorge thought, there was no way he would miss his psychologist appointment in Partonsville this afternoon. So, fate chose for him to take the Nedsbury bus. It was cheaper and Gorge wasn’t very rich (this he also blamed on fate). Little did he know, fate wouldn’t let him take the bus or the train.

If you asked one of George’s family members, they would say he had gone off the deep end. He was always talking on and on about how fate would to this or that. He was only 50% correct in his statements. That is pretty good for someone that believes that decisions are only an illusion. What had started his rambling beliefs? His family didn’t like to talk about it. All they could say is that it involved the Nedsbury train station, and a trash can. 

Gorge was so absorbed in his thoughts about fate, he almost didn’t hear the Partonsville train as it bounced into the station, a cloud of smoke choking from the boiler. It was one of the rare trains that could send its cars jolting into the air and land them back onto the rails. Gorge could see springs and bolts clattering on the tracks behind the caboose. It tried to screech to a stop before hitting the end of the tracks. George wondered how a train like this could stay maintained.

The problem with having completed the trip from Partonsville was that it would have to turn around to go back to the big city. The builders of the tracks had had a tight budget. They hadn’t built a roundabout, so the train needed to drive back to Partonsville going what the engineers called retrograde, meaning backwards. 

Gorge was thinking about how lucky he was that fate had made him take the bus. He was so glad he wouldn’t have to take a one hour train ride going backwards. “Maybe fate will not throw anything cruel at me after all…

The train hit something small on the rail. Its left wheels pitched off for a good 15 feet before clunking to a halt back on the tracks. It had hit a tin can; the very same can that Sara hadn’t picked up.

…Maybe fate will not throw anything cruel at me after all,” Gorge thought hopefully. Right at that moment, the tin can shot out from under the train. Like a rocket, it nailed Gorge right on the head. He fell unconscious. All the spectators on the platform gathered around.

“Is he dead?” 

“We should call an ambulance!”

“What a shot! Did you see that!? Right on the head!”

“Was this a coincidence?”

Someone called a hospital. As the train and bus departed from Nedsbury, a rickety old ambulance arrived. Someone loaded Gorge into the back. But fate was not done doing its damage.

The stage was set. All these people moved into the final act, not knowing that their decisions, voluntary or not, would combine in the pending disaster…