Chapter 25 second quarter

On the Tokaido Main Line at night, the express train "Moonlight" is running towards the destination Osaka in the direction of Kansai.It had been more than three hours since the departure from Tokyo, and it was time for most of the passengers to go to bed, especially all the passengers in the third-class sleeper cars, they should have drawn the curtains and fell asleep.However, Sonobe, who is a sleeper car waiter, still cannot sleep because of his duties as a waiter.There was a passenger boarding at Hamamatsu Station, and he had to take that passenger to his berth.It is very annoying not to be able to sleep just because you are alone.If the passenger is an eye-catching beauty, it's fine, but if it's a wrinkled old man, it's too miserable.

The bright early summer night wind blows in from the half-opened window of the waiter's room. Under the wind blowing, and being surrounded by the monotonous and rhythmic sound of the train, it's strange not to want to sleep when encountering such a situation.As long as people are repeatedly subjected to constant stimuli, they can make them fall asleep, which is the basis of hypnosis. The lights of the station shot across the windows like arrows.Sonobe looked at the clock, it was almost two o'clock.The light just now should be Kanaya Station or Kikugawa Station, right?We will arrive at Hamamatsu Station in forty minutes.As long as you leave Hamamatsu, you can sleep well without being disturbed by anyone, and endure for another forty minutes, forty minutes...

He suddenly opened his eyes and raised his head.Just now, half asleep and half awake, I seemed to hear someone knocking on the door.When he got up, his footsteps wobbled a bit, and when he looked into the corridor, he saw a man in a bathrobe standing there with an angry expression on his face. "The people sleeping in my bottom bunk were so noisy I couldn't sleep at all." The man who could wear a bathrobe in the sleeper car must have been a frequent traveler.Most of the passengers who would complain there because of some trivial matters. "Is that man making a scene?"

"He's not screaming, he's moaning." "Could it be that you don't feel well?" "He may be sick, but he annoys me with the noise anyway." It seems that the other party doesn't sympathize with the patient's suffering at all, and only feels that the most serious thing is that he can't sleep because of the noise.The Sonobe attendant put on his uniform cap and followed the passenger. They walked to the place near the center of the sleeping car, and the guest pointed to the lower bunk.Indeed, there were voices coming from the inside of the curtain, which were not so much moans as sleep talking.The sleep talking stopped suddenly, and after a short interval, it started again.It sounded like he had been saying something, but the pronunciation was so unclear that it was impossible to understand what he was talking about.

"Hello……" The train attendant yelled from outside the curtain.Because I have to worry about other passengers who are resting, I can't shout too loudly.But the passengers on the lower floor seemed unable to hear his call, and continued to babble in sleep. The waiter opened the curtain and peeked in. The dim ceiling lighting slanted into the berth, and a man in his sixties was sleeping on the bed.His pillow and blanket had shifted, and profuse drool was pouring from his mouth onto one cheek.He looked extraordinary. "Hello you--" The waiter shook the passenger's body with one hand, but the passenger still didn't open his eyes, half of his face began to twitch, and then he started raving again.Sonobe noticed that the passenger boarded the train in Tokyo. He was carrying a brand new small suitcase and was wearing light clothing. He did not look like a frequent traveler.He seemed to like drinking, though, and Sonobe saw him on the train near Yokohama, his whiskey half empty and his face flushed with drunkenness.And his destination, I remember, is the final stop, Osaka.

The train attendant looked back.The man sleeping in the middle bed was still standing there with his hands in his arms and a cigarette in his mouth.Perhaps the smoke had reached his eyes, he kept blinking, looking down at the patient with an indifferent expression.The passengers on the opposite side seemed to have woken up too. They opened the curtains a little and peeped out from the gap. "It's better to let him get out of the car." A young man pretended to be talking to himself, secretly reminding the waiter that he should do this.Even if the young man didn't say anything, Sonobe knew that he must be let out of the car.But the reason he wanted to do this was not to drive the guy who disturbed the lucid dream out of the car like the man, but to get the sick passenger to receive treatment.

The waiter looked at his watch.Fifteen minutes to Hamamatsu...and there is a large hospital in Hamamatsu.He had to contact the special train captain immediately and ask him to throw the communicator to notify Hamamatsu Station.The waiter Sonobe got up hastily. When the train passed Tenryugawa Station, a communication tube was thrown out, which contained a message that emergency patients should get off at Hamamatsu.The message seemed to be conveyed smoothly. When the train approached Hamamatsu Station, Sonobe saw station attendants carrying stretchers, doctors and nurses in white clothes on the platform in the middle of the night.He breathed a sigh of relief from the bottom of his heart, thinking: Great, that passenger was saved.

After the train stopped, the station staff entered the compartment and moved the patient onto a stretcher according to the doctor's instructions.When they left, they walked lightly so as not to disturb the rest of the passengers.Sonobe collected the small bottles of whiskey, coats, and hunting caps scattered on the berth and handed them to the nurse. After all the work was done, and the five-minute docking time of "Moonlight" was over, it moved again.Sonobe looked at the gradually shrinking platform and prayed for the patient's speedy recovery. "Mr. Waiter, where is this bed?" A voice called him from behind, and he turned his head to see a passenger who had just boarded the train and was showing him a ticket for a sleeper car.

"Here, please follow me." After he finished speaking politely, he walked in front of the passengers to lead him the way.Ironically, the passenger was not the young beauty that Sonobe expected, but a little evil-looking old man who he didn't want to see.