THE TRAIN STATION SEEMED TO GET SMALLER every time Dr. Judah Godling came home from New York where he was taking his specialization in cardiology.

    It was the day before Halloween and he was back in Nirvañana at the request of his father. His father sounded troubled on the phone but he wouldn't tell him about it.

     The train slowed down and the middle-of-nowhere station closest to home looked foreshortened and so saturated in the glow of the angry sunset such that Judah had to shade his eyes before clearly seeing it all. The only living creature present was the new signalman who replaced his old friend Pops after he retired a few years back.

     The antiquated train came to a groveling stop as in self-abasement.

     The signalman waved the flag signal until the train halted.

     Judah carried his leather messenger bag and climbed down to the station's passenger platform. As the train moved on, the signalman gave him a curious stare then hurried back to his office. Unlike Pops, this one was not so friendly.

     He walked to the old vending machine, put his bag on the floor, and fished for coins in his pocket while he checked himself at the machine's glass panel. Clear, clean-shaven face with no dark under eye circles like his fellow doctors on killer nightshifts at the hospital. Casual grey tweed blazer with a white buttoned down shirt on top of dark blue straight jeans. Brown penny loafers to complete my smart casual attire.

     Ready for his girl, his fiancée, Regina Patriarcha.     

     If she knew that he'd be arriving, she'd surely pick him up. He wanted to make sure he looked good for her. 

     Judahtilted his head to look at the backlit train-advertising poster at theplatform. "Hey, honey."    

     Regina'sgreen hazel eyes smiled at him while her rose petal lips teased him to kissher. The ends of the wavy golden brunette hair that framed her face caressedher left hand gracefully placed between her neck and partially exposed breaststo show the exquisite branded diamond engagement ring she was wearing on herfourth finger.

     Tiny white letters at the lower portion of the poster tempted whoever looked at it with the ad campaign's slogan: Your ticket to heaven.

     Out of this world may be a good phrase to describe Regina's beauty. It was not just her perfect face or shapely body. There was something in her aura that seemed to stop time and remind the beholder of the first time he or she had fallen in love. She made everything around her lovely.

     Reginawas fashion model, concert pianist, and environmental advocate. She was theonly child of Spanish-Filipino billionaire Vicente Partriarcha and the lateAmerican society matron Caroline Campbell. Her great grandfather was a wealthyimmigrant from the Philippines who created an even bigger fortune in America bylending money to governments and providing supplies for the armies during theFirst and Second World Wars. With all the conflicts going on, the family'swealth just kept on growing and spreading all over the world.

     Judah dropped the coins into the slot. A can of his favorite Manila-Cola turned up. Before he could take it, he heard a threatening voice.

     "Dr. Judah Godling."

     Heturned around and saw three huge, rock-solid men with earpieces and what he wassure were guns bulging underneath their coats, surrounding me. They remindedhim of gaudily dressed Italian mobsters in the movies. Only they wereAsian-Americans.

     "That's me," Judah said.

     "You will take the next train back to where you came from," the man with a badly corrected cleft lip said.

     "I'm there. This is home."

     "Hey, he's a smart one," the man with a unibrow and flat top hair said. "I like him already."

     The grinning man looking like a gorilla with green dental braces took the Manila-Cola from the machine, crushed the can with one hand, soda squirting everywhere, and dropped it on the ground.

     "You misunderstand, Godling," cleft lip man said. "We're telling you to leave Nirvana right now."

(CONTINUED)