[Train track volume to 0 and repitch to 0] Hello, and welcome to Boonta Vista, episode 238. I’m Theo,

[Start]

And I’m a train. But what does that mean? Let me explain.

When I say “Look at me I’m a train on a track I’m a train I’m a tricka-train yeah”, what do I mean? What aspects of trainness am I claiming to embody? Is it reliability, and the ability to serve others? Simplicity? Is it that I have traded personal agency for altruism, and accepting that to be the best me, to be a functioning part of a larger whole, I must accept the reality of being on rails: that complete freedom is not compatible with a kind and just society, and to be a train, and all that that entails, means allowing myself to be steered. Or is it something else entirely? Have I missed the point?

[Volume up] [Pitch out just a touch] [Volume back]

When I say “Look at me I’m a train on a track I’m a train I’m a tricka-train yeah”, what do I mean? What aspects of humanity must I leave behind have left behind? Look: here, a young boy plucks the wings off of a dragonfly, workmanlike, feeling no empathy for a creature he sees none of himself in. Taking those wings, he carefully presses them between the pages of his book, and weighs them down patiently. And finally, presenting his book of studies to his grandmother, mutually delighted mutual delight. Look: here, a cadre of soldiers pull a stunned deer back to shelter; its foreleg shattered by blast fragmentation; they soothe it like a dying brother or friend, forgetting who threw the grenade momentarily. How much of this have I left behind?

[Volume up] [Begin to pitch down] [Volume back] [Switch to Vocals]

When I say “Look at me I’m a train on a track I’m a train I’m a tricka-train yeah”, allow me to dispense of the metaphor. I am a DB Class 101 three-phase electric locomotive, and I weigh 83 tons. The procedure was a complete success. Through my body I pull 15 kilovolts of electricity. [Start cranking up compression + other]My arms and legs have traded moment for torque, pulling me forwards irresistibly. My flesh remains, but repurposed, compressed, tantalised into steel. You see me now, post-ferromorphosis. My blood has been slowed down. My marrow performed this task, pulling my blood down and thick. My blood has been slowed down and is now black as oil and circulating just as essentially as the blood in your system. You, too, may become this. My marrow has been disposed of. My liver has been disposed of. My calcium transmuted. You see me now, post-ferromorphosis.

[Switch back to track, slow down further]

Just as the Golem of Chelm had the holy word for truth, Emet, inscribed on his head, I too have the holy word of truth inscribed within myself, an iron golem. The truth flows in tiny voltages, scattered across silicon, and it speaks of the timetable, until my word of Emet has the aleph scratched away, becoming just met - death. There is only the timetable.

You too may become this. I have no fingers with which to type code. There is only the timetable. I am on rails, and I am free. I have no fingers with which to type code. There is only the timetable.

[Pitch back]

We’re pulling into the station now, and Lucy, Andrew, and Ben have stepped inside me! Welcome everybody! How are we today. -