A Rocky Ride

“Oh no, I did it again!” Kendra thought to herself as she shifted in her seat, beginning to wake up. Every time she goes to the movies, she ends up falling asleep. But why does it sound like a train, she wondered, struggling to open her eyes. She went to see a romance film set on a cruise ship. She dozed off soon after it started. The last thing she remembered was a woman in her room on the ship getting ready to meet another woman she had met right after boarding. The two had locked eyes, struck up a conversation, and had agreed to have dinner together in one of the clubs onboard the ship.

As she opened her eyes, Kendra gasped, and her immediate thoughts were “This is a train! But how did I get here? Was I drugged? Where am I going and why don’t I remember anything except dozing off during that movie?” She glanced around and saw several empty seats, but only 6 men and 1 woman in her car, all seated at the front, while she was alone toward the rear. She lifted the window shade and glanced outside. She didn’t recognize the landscape, if you can call it that. There were shrubs, dirt, an occasional odd looking tree, and nothing else that she could see. Not that she could see much, they seemed to be going incredibly fast. Maybe too fast! As far as she knew, there were no high-speed trains in the US, say nothing of New Hampshire, and this looked nothing like the New Hampshire hills she had seen every day of her life. Where was she?

She looked around for her purse but couldn’t find it. She checked all her pockets and all she found was a half-unwrapped piece of sugar free gum (no surprise, she never was without it), the ticket stub from the movie, and $6.48, her change from the concession stands when she gave $10 for a small soda. It was silly to pay it but at least she didn’t buy the candy and popcorn too. She didn’t expect to find her cell phone, as she always left it home when she walked to the theater. It was just over a mile, and you can’t use a phone during the movie anyway. Not having it removed the temptation to keep checking it, like a trained mouse looking for another nibble of cheese. Stop! Don’t get distracted! She had to figure this out. Where was she, why was she on this train, and where was she heading?

Looking toward the front again, she figured her fellow passengers could at least help answer the first question; where she was. “Excuse me” she said timidly. Nobody reacted, and it seemed they hadn’t heard her. “Excuse me”, she tried again. Nothing. She stood and, steadying herself by touching the corners of the seats on both sides of the aisle, made her way closer to the front where her fellow passengers were sitting. She sat in the seat across from the woman, who gave a quick sideways glance and faced forward again without a smile or a word to Kendra.

Kendra spoke; “Excuse me, I’m sorry to bother you. I just woke up and I’m embarrassed to admit that I don’t know how I got on this train. Can you tell me where we are or if you know where the next stop is? I can’t believe I just asked you that, and you probably think I’m a nut, and maybe I am, but I’m so confused! I don’t seem to have a ticket, a bag, my purse, or anything!”

The woman chuckled to herself, and one of the men in front of them laughed out loud. The others made no movement or sound, as though they hadn’t heard anything Kendra had said. “Please” Kendra pleaded. “The last thing I remember is watching a movie in the theater. Can you tell me where this train is coming from or going to? Sorry, it’s a train and probably going to a lot of places but it’s going so fast! Where are you going? Maybe that will give me an idea of what I’m doing here.”

The woman looked at Kendra and shook her head. “What does that mean?”, Kendra asked. The woman’s voice was raspy, but she did answer. “This train has no destination, and we all got on it in different places.” “No destination? What does that mean? It can’t just go forever, it has to have a stop somewhere. Where did you get on, and if it doesn’t have a destination, why did you get on?”. Kendra was feeling more anxious by the second, her heart racing, and a floaty feeling coming over her. She struggled to stay connected to reality as her mind tried to understand what the woman was saying. “...grocery line and then I was here, just like you.” “WHAT!?”, Kendra shrieked. “You don’t remember getting on this train either? This doesn’t make sense, it can’t be real! I wish I would wake up from this nightmare!”

The man who had laughed when Kendra initially spoke to the woman, turned around and said “You are awake. There is no point in yelling. You’re here. We’re here. None of us remember anything. We were doing mundane things, just like you, and then found ourselves here. Time doesn’t pass, or if it does, we can’t mark it. My watch says exactly the same time it did when I came aboard, however I came aboard. I think, but of course I don’t know, that I’ve been on this train for 7 or 8 days now. It just keeps on going. The scenery never changes out the window, it’s just ledges of rock, with nothing else to see. I have no idea what to think, so I’ve stopped thinking. It’s not scary if you don’t think about it.”.

Kendra shrunk back when he said the view never changes, it is just ledges of rock. She hadn’t seen a single rock. She looked again out the window, this time on the opposite side of the train, the window of the seat she had sat down on to talk to the woman. It was still just shrubs and dirt. She turned back to the man and said “Rock? That’s just dirt and ugly shrubs!”. One of the other men spoke up, without moving a muscle, his tone one of boredom, “I guess we all see something different, because all I have seen is trees and lakes. So boring. Nobody in the lakes, no boats, no people, no animals in the woods. Just green trees and dark lakes.”

“How many other cars are there in this train?” Kendra asked, to no one in particular. The man who saw the ledges shrugged. Nobody else responded. Kendra decided to investigate. Again, holding the edges of the other seats, she walked to the very front of the car and opened the door to go through to the next car. There was only one problem with that. There was no next car! Not even an engine or locomotive or whatever the lead part of a train was called. The door opened up to just shrubs and dirt, and of course the tracks keeping the train from derailing and probably killing them all immediately, because it was going so fast. So. Very. Fast! Kendra had been in cars with friends when she was young and wild and had seen how fast 100mph was. This train made that look slow. They must be traveling 150mph or more! Without an engine?? Impossible.

The power must be behind their car, she thought, pushing them down the track, rather than pulling. She made her way to the back of the car and opened the door to go to the car behind theirs. As soon as she opened the door, she slammed it closed and ran back to the front with the others. “There are no other cars, engines, or anything! It’s just us and behind us is a blue abyss. Nothing to see, just blue. Like a summer blue sky, except it’s not just sky. It’s just...nothing. Just...blue", she trailed off.

Kendra was hyperventilating as she struggled to get out the words while trying to make sense of what she had just seen. Or not seen. None of this made any sense at all.

One of the men who had yet to even acknowledge her presence on the train turned to speak to her. “My name is Albert. What’s your name?”. “Kendra”, she said softly, nearly a whisper really. “You’ve had quite a shock, and while that’s understandable, you need to be able to relax and learn to enjoy the ride for however long it lasts. I’m going to give you a talisman to help channel some peace for you.” “A what?”, Kendra asked, skeptical that anything could help her to relax or feel peaceful on this train. “A talisman.” Albert repeated. “It’s a good luck charm with the power to make you feel relaxed and happy, less anxious, able to enjoy the train trip.”

Albert offered Kendra a small stone, about 1” diameter, nearly flat but with just enough of an indent to perfectly fit her middle finger on the bottom and her thumb on top. It was greenish gray, and as soon as she accepted it from him, she somehow did feel more calm and less worried about how she got on the train and what the future would look like, or even if she had a future. She held it, she rolled it around in her fingers, and really began to relax. She settled into the seat across from the woman, whose name she didn’t know, and just fell into a comfortable ride, listening to the sound of train wheels on train tracks. They were all silent again.

Soon, or maybe not soon, time really didn’t seem to exist, she heard a young boy behind her. “Excuse me.”

Kendra woke with a startle as bright lights interrupted her sleep. Closing credits were rolling on the screen, her soda was tipped precariously on her lap, and the theater was nearly empty of people. “Wow, that was a really weird dream”, she thought to herself. Standing up, she made her way out of the theater, tossing her soda into the trash bin on her way out. Reaching into her pocket for the piece of gum she knew she had brought with her, she headed out the door to walk back home. She found the gum, but also something else. She pulled it out and saw a greenish gray rock, about 1” diameter. Chills ran down her spine as she looked around, and she wished she lived a lot closer than a mile away.