Listen to the song.
Inside a pleasantly decorated luxury train car, a 28 year-old brunette woman is looking down, reading, with her hair in her face. The woman appears a bit bored and despondent, biting absentmindedly at her nails. She’s dressed in 1940s clothing: a white blouse with a delicately beaded jacket. With the first errant note of guitar, she glances up and out of the train window. Nothing registers in her face at first. It’s dawn, and she squints, looking for the first note of actual sun yolk in the cloudy morning. It feels still within the cabin, but the train is going fast. It’s running through a semi-rural area in what appears to the southern United States. It’s the California Zephyr from LA to Chicago. The scenery outside is a somewhat monotonous arid landscape, and the track extends as far as the eye can see. Mountains rise on either side.
A 65 year-old woman across the aisle from our first character is fixing her makeup in a tiny portable mirror, brushing a bit of pale powder over her eyelids. It looks to be purely habit: she’s not preparing for anything or anyone in particular. Something catches her eye, and upon closer inspection she is now using the mirror to look at a man behind her. A handsome man on the train is smoking a cigarette and reading a newspaper.
He’s actually sort of scouring it. An article mentions a fatal car crash, and he uses a large pair of red scissors to carefully cut it out, cigarette still in his fingers. He places it on the windowsill on top of a pile of other cut-out articles, and smoothens them out. The man looks aimlessly at the seat in front of him for only a moment, and then returns to his task. The sun is coming up now.
A mother and a father sit with their triplet 3 year-old boys. One boy is on father’s lap, one boy is on mother’s lap, one boy sits on the outside of mother. The boys on laps are quietly play-fighting with each other with some flappy gesticulations. They’re wearing matching tiny bowties. As far as anyone can tell, this is an ideal 1940s family situation. The third boy is looking out the window in excitement, and trying to get the attention of his brothers by tapping their shoulders. They don’t notice, so he goes back to staring out the window and puts his hands on the glass, completely absorbed by what he’s seeing in the distance.
An ungracefully tall train attendant comes by wearing a pinstripe suit and a little hat with a tassel; he bows, smiling, and offers the three little boys three little lollipops. Each child as well as their father turn toward the attendant in utter covetousness and glee. They all smile garishly. The lollipops are handed out individually to each child with a specific dignity. Father––popless––looks at the happy boys with disgust and resentment. Mother smiles at the children and wags her finger. She plucks the lollipops out of their hands one by one. They eye each other unhappily––they expected as much. She hands the three lollipops to the father. Father is overjoyed to have regained control; he leans over and passionately kisses the mother whose red lipstick smears and transfers all around both of their mouths. It’s disgusting.
The train appears to be moving into some clouds. The initial woman looks at the clouds through the window. Immediately they morph into something almost recognizable, a fish with feet. Now several: a school of barefooted fish. She opens her mouth in awe. It’s remarkable. She looks around desperately to see if other people notice the phenomenon. Others have not noticed, besides perhaps one of the triplets, but there’s no way to express the connection.
The hallway of the train car is now free and clear. There’s a sort of gaudy chandelier on the ceiling, and the people inside have all settled down. The rug in particular has a beautiful, complex pattern, and each window has a little velvety curtain affixed open with little gold fringes.
Suddenly a single blue butterfly appears in the cabin. It flutters back and forth hesitantly. It takes a moment for anyone to notice. Then the kids point and cover their mouths in delight––their thought of the lollipops is completely gone. They poke at Mommy and Daddy (who are now sleeping with their red mouths open). They aren’t waking up. The older woman looks up from her mirror and claps her hands, pleased. A butterfly! How darling.
The young brunette woman looks back outside again: formless clouds. Big, puffy cumulous clouds. No fish in sight. She shakes her head and goes back to her book just as the butterfly passes right over her hands. She looks up in wonder.
Two men are playing cards: the younger gestures upward to the older. They put down their hands for a moment, both happy to see the butterfly. They smile and nod. One of them begins to chuckle a little bit too excessively. Everyone sees it as a special little moment. It is a special little moment. People laugh and converse: a new lightness has fallen upon the scene.
After the entire car has registered this not-unpleasant situation, another butterfly appears in the train car. At first it’s a source of small excitement, but it’s also a bit confusing. The triplets look at each other with surprise. The older woman starts to look around to see the reactions of people around her. The men sitting beside each other are doing the same. A third butterfly now. The train patrons are all looking around at each other, unsure of how to react. It seems as though three butterflies on the train is probably two too many butterflies on the train. The man who was chuckling to the point of tears now strains his neck and dabs his forehead with a cloth napkin.
Our train attendant is on a mission to politely catch the three escaped butterflies. He prances around with a little net on a pole, swiping at the butterflies. He’s trying to do this delicately, but he looks lanky and awkward running around with the net. He runs back and forth with great effort but the butterflies easily elude him. Everyone prefers to be politely ignorant of the situation, and looks away self-consciously. The boys on laps giggle. The man trimming news is the first to actively swat at a butterfly with his papers. This action is met with a harsh look from the older woman sitting in front of him.
Now dozens of butterflies come flooding into the train car. The older woman’s eyes widen. The chuckling man has turned red. The train attendant’s expression turns quickly from panic to resolution. He tightens his grip on the net and looks around for the source of the swarm. It’s an impossible effort.
The train is now rounding the base of a scenic mountain. It looks calm from afar, chugging along persistently. The light on the mountain is beautiful, and the fine train flows along the track with poise and majesty.
Inside, the car is in a state of unrest: everyone is swatting at the bugs––the older woman with particular vigor––and everyone besides the sleeping parents is attempting to protect their faces from the swarm. The train attendant is swinging the net like a baseball bat. The two men who were playing cards pry open a window, and some of the butterflies fly out of the train, but a good majority of them decide to just stay inside. Attempts to make them leave are futile. People begin to leave their seats and run around in absolute chaos. The older woman faints back into her seat. The triplets bawl: Mommy and Daddy will not wake up to see the commotion. The three lollipops are decimated by the butterflies. Everyone is horrified, especially the attendant. The butterflies appear to be consuming the riders; every body is covered entirely with swarms of butterflies. A butterfly goes inside Mommy’s mouth.
From a distance, the train moves steadily down the stilted track. It’s shaping up to be a beautiful day, and the clouds are all remarkably shaped like fish with feet. They walk out of sight as the vision fades to black.