RXR Zine

Do a series of railroad related drawings. Ie crossing gate, train cars, tracks, nails, etc. Want them to look dark and creepy though. Someone walking the rails. Railroad equipment. Someone in a boxcar doorway.

The original idea here was as follows: The distance between many of the California Missions is about a day's walk. There is a mission in Ventura, CA and one in Santa Barbara, CA. My idea was to walk/hike from the Ventura Mission to the Santa Barbara Mission in a day. I'd walk along the railroad tracks that run between the two cities. Hence the name RXR. Obviously, since I'm no longer living in Ventura I can't really do this one. I think perhaps this might end up being a fictional story or a fictional trip story. Or maybe there might be another 2 cities to walk between. The perfection of walking between Ventura and SB was the secluded RXR tracks between them.

FICTION: The Last Train Certain records, if you listen to them backwards, have secret messages hidden in the verses. The Beatles even did it. People generally don't like the idea of things being hidden from them in plain sight. I was walking along the tracks, idly balancing on one rail or the other, in no real hurry to get where I was going, when I felt the rumble of a train. I looked up ahead and saw nothing. I looked back and saw nothing. Odd, I thought, must be up around that curve ahead. I made my way to the side of the track and down the embankment of loose gravel. Standing between the trees facing the tracks, I waited. I took my pack off and set it beside the tree to my left and sat down beside the tree to my right. It was time for a break, I decided, and this was as good a time and place as any other. The train finally began to pass, slowly jerking its way along, it’s multitude of cars trailing. After a good rest the miles can seem like they’re flying by. It’s as if the energy gets stored up and becomes a force, a wind at your back. I could have become a bird by the time I reached my destination, a slow trans-formation. As thoughts of feathers and wings rushed through my head I forgot all about the tracks beneath my feet. I felt a wind pick up. I didn't even see it coming.

RXR

The clattering coming from the tracks as the train sped by was becoming too much for. He was suppressing the urge to cover his ears. Luckily an end was in site. Eight more cars and he'd be clear. Her hand reached for his as the train quickly disappeared off into the distance. Possible story lines: Mysterious deaths occur along a railroad trek. Come to find out one of the travelers is a crazed killer. A love story? Maybe a lone traveler encounters another lone traveler, maybe they're both female, or both male. Could venture into erotic fiction. A sad story of a runaway trying to meet up with some estranged relative, a sister maybe? Maybe she's a female traveler? She insists on getting where she's going independent of others' help. A cursed traveler making his way to bigger and better things leaving a trail of disaster and misfortune in his wake. Things catch fire, trains collide, people die. Nothing he does can stop it... Until... Multiple people at different points in time attempt to walk along the same stretch of track, only to meet their doom every time, until someone can break their curse. Hit by a train, stabbed by a vagrant, bit by a snake, trip and fall, etc. If it wasn't for the glowing warmth of his fire Sean would be dead right now. N story left to tell. Just dead. His hands felt like somebody elses as he rubbed them together, just skirting the wisps of flame. He was relieved to find this perfect spot to rest through the night. The outcropping of rock where he found himself now kept the wind at bay, protecting his fire and himself, from the cold. Just a short walk from the tracks that brought him here, he could just make out the track switch in the distance as dusk faded into twilight. He could hear the rising howls of coyotes beyond the edge of darkness and silently he hoped his fire would last. The bedding Sean had laid out looked more and more inviting as the hours rolled by. His meager dinner of canned beans and stale cornbread sat like a rock in his gut, dragging the rest of his body down into the depths of sleep. Soon enough he gave up and added a final hulking log to his fire before laying his head on his backpack. As he drifted he thought about the job waiting for him at his uncles farm in Calabasas. He thought about all those pumpkins sitting in perfect rows, jack-o-lantern faces staring back at him. In his dreams he saw those pumpkins rise from the ground, lanky bodies made of roots dragged up beneath them. They stood there swaying at first, then, suddenly, they began to dance. They danced and leaped across a stage with evil looking guitars, wailing a song he didn't know, didn't recognize. As the solo crescendoed in a high pitch scream Sean awoke, startled at the sound of a real scream. No, a horn. A train. There would be no reason to signal like that way out here, he thought. He stood up groggily and staggered quickly down the path, toward the tracks. About fifty feet ahead he could see the track switch, but no train. He was rubbing the sleep from his eyes as he reached the slope of gravel below the tracks. He looked right, saw nothing, then left, where he spotted the outline of a motionless row of train cars about a hundred feet away. He glanced right when he felt a rumble begin to well, making his ear twitch. A bright white light suddenly flashed across his face as another train careened around the bend toward the idle train. He stumbled backwards as the train rushed past him, the updraft whipping his jacket around his body. Regaining his footing he looked just in time to see the speeding train collide with the stationary one. A sound like a bat making contact with a baseball and snapping in half times a million, shaking Sean's bones to the core. In slow motion sean saw the cars in tow, about 18 or 20 of them, began to arc up toward the black starless sky. One of the cars must have been carrying combustibles because it lit up the night for one hot minute, resulting in a rain of fire and steel. The explosion sent Sean to the ground. He clambered for some kind of cover but there was nothing around him except brush and bushes. All he could do was run. Through the dark he ran for his fire. Runaway