Underneath the train I can hear the thump thump thump of the wheels meeting the track, like a conversation or a chance reunion with an old comrade. Ahead in the cabin, I can hear the uncomfortable chatter of travelers keeping themselves occupied by making temporary friends with the passengers near to them; their lies audible through their haughty tones of voice. A muffled squeak is emitted as someone shifts in their seat, causing an infection of snickering among the less mature passengers. Outside, the birds must be singing as they travel the soft-blue sky. Out there, somewhere, there must be something worth smiling about.
As I step away from the wall and move toward my designated seat, the train gives a violent lurch, causing me to careen into the dirty, rough ground. A sharp spike of pain emanates through my hand as it meets the floor. As soon as I am in control of the situation, I raise my hand up, feeling droplets of blood form a pathway down my palm toward my wrist, giving a painful throb with every heartbeat. I help myself up with my other hand, grabbing hold of a cold rusty bar secured to the cabin's wall. Using my shirt, I gently wipe away the crimson from my hand, take out a medicine bottle of painkillers from my pocket, struggle to take the child-safe cap off with my injured hand, succeed, and force two of the circular-shaped self-prescriptions down my dry and aching throat.
I grab a bottle of water to squelch the bitter taste of the little round pills from my gullet. I take a gulp, letting the water move smoothly and tastelessly down into my stomach, but it does nothing for the aftertaste. In fact, seconds later, the bitterness is overwhelmingly powerful, as if the water has magnified the unpleasant taste burning into the back of my tongue. I grope around my pockets, searching for something that I had been given on the way in, and alas, I find the tiny packet of peanuts in my left pant pocket. I struggle for a moment to open the package, and then I succeed: quickly I take out a small, seasoned nut and toss it in my mouth. The salty-spicy taste of the peanut has a metallic zest to it, as if I had just licked the recently dried blood from my palm. At least it is better than the bitterness of the pills.
As I sit, crunching on the peanuts, I sense their unique odor in my nostrils. The smell of the peanuts is far better than the taste, but after inhaling a few deep breaths of peanut fragrance, I perceive something different in the air; a sweet aroma that is somewhere between the scent of potpourri and little freshly grown red rosebuds. Another breath allows me to follow the incense across the room to its owner, an attractive young woman who chews lightly on a peppermint stick. I wipe the remnants of peanut from around my mouth with my hand and the pungent malodor of blood engulfs me.
I look to the peppermint princess; she does not seem to notice my presence in the cabin of the train. I should go talk to her. I have nothing better to do, so I should just go talk to her. I stand up, wobbling slightly from the movement of the train beneath me, and walk to her. She does not notice me for a moment more, and then, upon turning her head, her face turns from an expression of mindful nonchalance to one of unpropitious shock.
"Are you okay?" she says in a high, angelic voice with a slight Southern drawl. I forgot about the blood.
Of course I'm okay, I tell her. I only had a minor spill in the back. I confide to her that I am not very good at moving around on already moving objects.
"Do you need any help, sugar? Do you need a bandage?"
No, I say, I'll just clean the wound once I've got off the train, so it won't get infected.
She smiles, her big eyes as heavenly as her angelic voice.
"Alright then, you be more careful now, you hear?"
I say I will, and then head back to my seat with heavy steps.
Sitting down, I take the time to observe the cabin some more. To each side of the cabin are two of the vinyl seats juxtapositioned to each other so they leave an aisle down the center of the car. Seat, seat, gap, seat, seat. I am sitting in roughly the twelfth— no, thirteenth— row, on the right side next to the window. The seat in front of me (row twelve, seat four) has the marking of an artist on the seat's back that sets it apart from all others. The seat proclaims: "Those who never live, die." Pondering this, I sit back in my seat and close my eyes.
When I awake, the train is still rolling along its iron thoroughfare. Around the cabin, the environment has changed. All of the passengers before have exited, including the beautiful angelic princess, and have been replaced with a more morose audience. The walls of the cabin look cleaner, but it is probably just an illusion of the dusk-time light. There are less people now (seven, including me), and everyone seems to be spread out more around the seats. The mood is very somber, thus reflecting quiet in the cabin. No one seems to notice my presence or that I have been sleeping in the back.
To the front of the world's most worn-out train cabin, I notice one man is projecting from the other passengers. He is wearing all black, except for an eggshell white handkerchief sticking out of his left (my right) breast pocket. He wears a tall, black hat with a well-trimmed beard, reminding me somewhat of Abraham Lincoln. The wrinkles in his face are not deep, but they do show the toughness that he must have encountered over the course of his life. He takes out a pocket watch chained to the inside of his stygian suit and checks the time. As he places it back into his coat, a glint of light shoots off of the silver watch into a corner. Following the beam of light with my eyes, I notice something peculiar.
I walk over into the dingy corner of the cabin. Near the door (the electric sliding jaw that I worried would crush me upon entering) I notice a piece of paper, tri-folded in business letter format, sitting like a small triangle tent on the ground. Examining it, I read:
To all employees:
Due to last week's unfortunate incident, it is important that we stress the cleanliness of the rail line. Management will be evaluating the performance of its staff members and will take all necessary actions in keeping the train clean.
—Winding Rails Expressway
As soon as I have read the note, I undergo an out-of-body experience. I remember when I was thirteen and naive, standing out in the midst of huge trees, throwing rocks skyward at the bats fluttering by, watching the poor flying creatures attack them. I remember asking my father why bats attack anything that flies, and he replied it was because it was how they caught their prey. Echolocation. I remember throwing my very last rock, the very last attempt at tricking a single bat into attacking a stone no bigger than a marble. I watched it in slow motion as the bat crashed headfirst into the object and was immediately incapacitated; falling, plunging out of the sky to the forest floor. In wonderment, I observed the tiny creature struggle for life, but give up its futile attempt and slowly die. I remember the words of my father after I had killed, murdered, one of the world's beautiful creatures. "That sure was unfortunate." Not my fault, said his words, it happens to us all. I never did throw a rock again.
I snap back into reality, as the half-sun is disappearing behind the red and rocky mountains to the west. The orange sky dissipates into purple, then into black above it. A full spectrum of colors. I look at my hand, but all of the dried blood is gone. The cuts are gone. The scars of the past: everything gone. My clothes are clean: I must be going insane. There had always been a hint in my mind that I would snap one day. But no, that doesn't make any sense. Insane people don't know they're insane! It was probably just a dream. One of those It-Was-So-Real dreams that startle you after waking up.
How did I get on this train, then? And where am I going? I can't remember the reason I chose this trip. Amnesia? At this age, is it even possible to have amnesia? I turn every thought over in my mind, my leg doing its nervous movement, bouncing on the ball of my foot. How is any of this possible?
As I had spent my time in thought, the sun slowly sank below the horizon, leaving only the indirect light barely illuminating the sky above. A deep puce purple. Is life like the sun? One day we dawn and another we set? The fatal effort of only one day as life. In death, are we just stars looking down upon the feeble Earth, weeping and burning? In that case, what does it matter at all that I'm on a train bound for Whoknowswhere. I let go of the problem: even something as simple as releasing the question is a solution to me. The most simple solution there is.
Again, in reminiscence. I think back to a rainy day in September. I think back to a friend in need, tears forcing her eye makeup to run down her cheeks and stain the white shoulders of my shirt. Sobbing because she never had any direction. Crying because there was never an answer. There never is an answer, I told her, all you can do is live your life day to day, time works out everything. It became my motto. I stroked her hair and whispered delicately into her ear as the weeping muffled into breathing again. Time works out everything.
My eyes, no matter if I wanted to or not, always ended up wandering back to the sky. No more sunlight. To the other side of the cabin, I can see the bright white light of a full moon hovering in the distance. How many people out there are suffering, lying in their deathbeds under the light of the full moon, soon to turn into stars? How I wish I had the power to let everyone live fully. Unobstructedly. Am I one of those people? The ones who look back on their life and have nothing to show for it? I press my thumb against the window and look at the tiny lines left by the thumbprint. Maybe life is a maze and only the most elite prevail. I blotch out the oil-puzzle on the glass.
I sit in my shabby seat, glancing from the blackened horizon to the smeared thumbprint on the window. The world outside looks cold. Emanating from underneath the train, a rattling can be heard. I look at the floorboards, seeing pebbles jumping up and down as the train hits bumpy terrain. I gaze back out the window. It seems as if the land outside is slowing. I look around the cabin. Everyone has the same apathetic expression on their face. Not me. I am arriving at Whoknowswhere station, and I want to— need to— see how life is here. Even all the way out here.
The train pulls into the station. It's 10:22 pm. All of the passengers are gathering their luggage and putting on their happy faces. Out of the train stream the only six passengers of the Winding Rails Expressway, car thirteen. Each one of them gleefully discarding their tickets into the wastebasket on the concrete floor of the station. Every one of them glad to be off the train that had so recently been defiled with death.
How does it occur that it is the only thing we all truly experience and the only thing we all truly fear? Every day is a race in life; we will all end up in the same bleak casket. Why is it that people fear death? Know that it has always been life that the world has been afraid of, death is nothing unnatural. Maybe life is unnatural. Why, then, is mankind not afraid of living?
An employee is sweeping the floor of car thirteen, whistling to himself. In the back, he finds the memo that his boss gave him sitting in the thirteenth row. He sits down to read it, because he lost it before he ever had the chance to. Before he can lift the paper to eye-level, he notices writing on the back of the seat in front of him. It reads:
"Those who never live, die."
Below it, in someone else’s handwriting (and pen as red as blood) is written some more, turning the tidbit of a deep-thought into a muse-provoking haiku:
"The falling ground which birthed them
Matriarch again."
I sit back and watch as the employee reads the graffiti turned into poetry. Not all poetry has a strict form: poetry comes from the heart, not from 5-7-5. I can't move, so instead I silently watch this teenage boy, this prince of brooms, read my message. I see the knowledge gather in his face; he looks both upset and enlightened. He finishes his job quickly, sweeping out the car at maximum speed, and then exits.
I suppose there was something on the floor that had killed me, leaving me to ride this track forever. Leaving this train ride to be my life.
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