Page 35 of Whistle

As his stay in Lucknow continued, Edwin Nabler could not have been more pleased with how things were going.

Since opening his shop here he’d sold nearly two dozen train sets, and results were trickling in. Best to go slow. Not a good

thing to attract attention too quickly, and he felt he was just riding the edge of that. But there had definitely been some

successes.

You had to take your time with these things. Just as good food took time to prepare, enabling chaos was something to be embraced

artfully. And again, to follow that analogy, some foods were made for elaborate feasts, and other were designed to be appetizers.

Every set that went out the door had a different level of potency. It wasn’t so much a quality control issue. Nabler didn’t

let anything leave the store that wasn’t top-notch. But just like if you ran a deli, sometimes a customer left with nothing

more than a wedge of Brie, while the next guy ordered a Smithfield ham. They catered to different appetites but both had to

be delicious.

So one train set, once it had been set up in a household, might spark nothing more than a flooded basement or a nasty argument

or maybe a bird flying through the window and landing in a bloody, feathery heap on the dining room table. But a set with

a little more oomph to it, well, who could guess what kind of mayhem would ensue? Explosions? Missing limbs? Decapitations?

Suicides?

That woman in the bathtub was a nice one. Hit that right out of the park, Nabler thought, giving himself a mental pat on the back. Perhaps, of all the toys he had prepared, that one had the most life—or death?—in it. He didn’t think that little set was done yet. It had potential, even if that dead woman’s husband was packing up the engine and cars and track and hoping to hand it off to someone else when the opportunity arose.

Nabler had been working through the night on the layout in the back of the shop. He had little use for sleep. Occasionally

he would sit down for a spell, and there was no doubt his work was taking a toll, but closing his eyes and tuning out for

seven or eight hours at a stretch had never been part of his routine. Yes, it was about time he found someone else to take

over.

But in the meantime, Edwin Nabler was determined to give it his all, and that was exactly what he had been doing. The progress

he had been making back here was impressive, if he did say so himself, and Gavin’s contributions to the project had been most

welcome.

His hair, once dyed green and brown and cut into short lengths, was used to create a grassy field. His rib cage, once draped

with plaster-soaked paper towels and painted green, had served nicely to make a small mountain. And his teeth, once extracted

and filed down, came in handy when Nabler set his mind to making a little rock garden in the miniature town square.

Nabler had also been consumed with putting down more track. The longer the route, the more opportunity for a train to absorb

the qualities of that through which it passed. What Nabler was creating was a nurturing nest, the loops of track akin to the

small sticks and blades of grass a bird collected and stitched together. To enter this area behind the shop was to immerse

yourself into a literal web of tracks. Visitors—and there would surely be more of those who would get to see his handiwork

once —would have to duck and weave to work their way to the center of it, not unlike some jungle explorer navigating a pathway obstructed by vines.

What a beautiful thing it was.

And there were always trains running. A cacophony of sound that might be annoying to the non-enthusiast, but it was a glorious

medley to Nabler. There were multiple loops of track that allowed him to run eight, nine, ten trains at any given time. The

chorus of metal wheels traversing metal track was a symphony.

ChuffchuffCLICKETYCLACKclicketyCLACKwooWOOchuffCLICKETYchuffCLICKETYchuffWOOchuggachuggaclackclicketyCHUFFCHUFFclicketyCLACKwooWOOchuffCLICKETYchuffCLICKETYchuffWOOchuggachuggaclackclicketyCHUFFCHUFFclicketyCLACKwooWOOchuffCLICKETYchuffCLICKETYchuffWOOchuggachuggaclackclicketyCHUFF...

It was a good thing he’d found a way to surreptitiously tap into the town’s electrical grid.

His current favorite train consisted of three blue Chesapeake & Ohio diesels pulling a long line of tanker cars. It clickety-clacked

past on one of the upper tracks, roughly eye level for Nabler. He squinted as it sped by, imagining it was a real train hurtling

toward some yet-to-be-realized catastrophe.

So, what next?

While there was always more to be done on the layout—and to accomplish that, Nabler would need more material, including not just actual people, but their personal items—it struck him as prudent to ease up for a period of time. Lucknow’s rate of calamities was on a noticeable upswing. Nabler believed it highly unlikely anyone would connect the dots—even if someone did, they’d question their own sanity suspecting that a toy train somehow played a role—but it didn’t hurt to play it safe. That meant turning out product that was a little less, well, high-voltage. Dial it back some. Once things settled down, he’d do some modifications to the production process and resume selling sets with a high level of chaotic potential.

It was good to have a plan.

Over the din, Edwin heard a sound.

The bell.

“Ah!” Nabler said. “A customer.”