All Aboard

A shudder pulses through my body. Wham! I open my eyes. I’m face down on a hard, wood floor that seems to be quivering as if it is alive. I inhale sharply and push myself into a sitting position. Everything is disorienting. Everything is moving.

I blink.

In shock, I move – but only my head. Slowly I look side to side, taking in my surroundings. A small room with two bench seats, a sliding door and a large window. Scenery surges past the window as the room sways and shakes. A mechanical clacking sound reverberates in the tiny cabin.

I’m on a train? How? Why?

My body doesn’t hurt. My vision isn’t blurred. But I am enveloped in a skin-crawling, stomach-knotting dread. Nothing makes sense. I didn’t buy a ticket. Where it could be taking me, I have no clue. But wherever it is going it is going very fast. Too fast.

Only two things are clear to me – I didn’t buy a ticket and I must get off this train.

Slowly, trying to keep my balance, I stand up. I stumble to the door and shove it open. Is the train moving faster now? So fast…too fast. Something is so very wrong.

A woman rushes by me toward what I can only assume is the back of the train. She’s hysterical. Like an angry mama bear. “Let me off! I need to get back to my son!” She doesn’t even see me as she runs by.

I move forward through the sleeping car into the dining car. The dining car is chaos. People crammed together – all of them confused. It is clear that no one wants to be here. It is clear that no one bought a ticket for this ride. One man is trying to tear his way through the outside wall of the dining car with his bare hands. Another man pulls him away. “Stop! You’ll get us all killed!” They begin to fight.

The scenery outside is flying by so quickly it makes my stomach sick. Surely, we are hurtling to our deaths. Is no one in control of the train?

The crowd scares the hell out of me. Each of them crying out for what they used to know…angrily taking it out on each other. I push my way through them as quickly as I can to get to the next car and slip inside.

Oddly, there is no one here. Wait…just one woman. A very old woman sitting by herself and looking out of the window.

Something about her presence draws me to her - this lone pinnacle of peace in utter chaos. Tentatively, I sit down beside her. Her eyes are fixed on the window beside her…a gentle smile playing across the corners of her mouth. Her eyes seem sad, but her mouth is happy. This is all too odd. Perhaps she is the only person here who bought a ticket…who knows where she is going.

I look out the window too, desperately trying to see what she sees. To understand why she is not upset. What context does she have that the rest of us don’t?

The scenery is beautiful. I hadn’t noticed that before…I was so focused on getting off this train – on trying to understand why I’m here in the first place.

I breathe deeply. I breathe again. Then once more.

My heart calms. My fists relax. Maybe I’m crazy but as I sit here slumped into this seat the scenery doesn’t seem to be quite as much of a blur. As though my own frantic thoughts were what was spurring the train forward so dizzyingly before.

She speaks for the first time. “It’s lovely, isn’t it?”

I’m still so confused. So many questions are burning in my brain, but nothing comes out of my mouth.

She speaks again. “I’m surprised you sat down with me. No one else ever has. They can’t see how beautiful this is. They’re afraid I suppose. Who can blame them?”

I muster a question. “How long have you been here?”

“Twenty-five years.”

Twenty-five years! My god! This strange little woman has just confirmed my worst fears and then some. What will become of us all? What will become of me? Apparently doomed to be ripped from my old life forever, my face goes dead white.

Well, technically I can’t prove that since I can’t exactly see my own face, but you know what I mean. You know how it feels when the life literally drains out of you in a split second. I know you do. Most people have felt that kind of fear at least once in their life.

She reaches over and touches my hand. Her hands are surprisingly warm. Surprisingly comforting.

“You had plans, didn’t you, dear? A life you really wanted to build. Adventures you wanted to have.”

I nod as the tears gather.

“I’m going to tell you a secret, dear. And it will take you some time before it feels true…but it will eventually. This train isn’t taking you away from your old life…because that life isn’t real anymore. It no longer exists. It did exist once and it was beautiful…but try as you might, you can never bring it back. That’s why you are on this train. That’s why we are all on this train. It is taking us into our futures.”

I don’t know what to say. I’m furious. But not at her. Something deep inside of me knows she’s telling me the truth... knows my old life is gone…that it was gone before I got on this train.

“Sweetheart, you can decide you don’t want to be here, and you can spend the next twenty-five years of your life trying to get off this train like all these other people are doing…or you can sit down and appreciate where it is taking you.”

My heartbeat slows once more.

She continues. “I have seen the most beautiful places. I have had the loveliest of adventures. I have lived because I chose to appreciate this ride.” Her eyes close as if she is savoring the most delicious drink while simultaneously reliving a lifetime of memories.

The anger still burns in my heart, but less hot. I look out the window and realize I’ve never seen anything quite like this. The pace of the train has definitely slowed down - or maybe it was never going as fast as it felt. Somehow it seems like the exact speed I would want to go to travel into my future.

I didn’t buy a ticket… but maybe, just maybe, this train will carry me to my greatest adventure yet. I’ll sit here for a while and see.