Going Nowhere, Fast

“Ugh, dear Lord,” he grunted, gripping to his forehead, as he stirred awake from what seemed like another drunken stupor. He had grown quite used to this. Moving slowly, he rubbed his palms into his eyes, as if to try to prepare his mind for another lousy day. However, his eyes shot open when he realized that the floor was shaking.

Sitting up quickly from his slouch and anxiously patting at the cushions of an unknown bench, he realized that he was somewhere he had never been. When his eyes finally came into focus, he was awestruck to see that he had been asleep on what appeared to be a foreign train. The fabric and trim were far more decadent than anything close to home. The cushions and curtains were a maroon velvet, coupled with mahogany and all trimmed with gold. “What the f—,” he mumbled to himself, as he looked around the cabin and then out the window to a mountain capped with snow. He lived on flat land.

He checked his pockets, but there was nothing. No ticket, wallet, phone, or keys. He was alone without even a clue of what to think. But as he tried to retrace his steps, he couldn’t remember where he had been the night before. Everything felt cloudy. Even his body was stiff and nearly lifeless. Peeking behind the blinds that covered the window to the hallway, there wasn’t a soul. It was eerily quiet, beyond the rattle of the train.

It must have been just past dawn. The sky was bright, but the sun still cast rays through the window. Bringing to light the still air, with its dust somehow frozen in time, moving at seventy miles per hour. The cabin jolted again. Shaking the man out of his utter shock. “I am supposed to be to work by now,” he thought, contemplating how his life could have ever had brought him here. Bewildered and disoriented, he took a moment to breathe and got up out of his seat.

The door to the cabin slid open loudly. He would have been embarrassed if there were anyone else to hear it. But he appeared to be the only person in the car, which left him even more unsettled. He checked every cabin, but the place was empty. Without even a loose piece of paper or a receipt that could give him a hint of where he was, or where he was headed. He sat back down for a moment to gather himself. To hopefully find a balance between his confusion and growing frustration. There was a door that exited to another car, but you weren’t necessarily supposed to walk through it. At least not while the train was moving. The track was exposed on either side, and without a handle or step between the two small platforms, to get to the other car he would have to walk the linkages or jump and pray that he can hold on.

His body was still incredibly sore and stiff. He had felt this way before, but not normally for this long, so he questioned whether or not he could make the leap. He doubted it, so he got comfortable in his seat and figured he would wait for the train to stop instead. Finding out how to get home from there. He laughed to himself however, “With trains like these, I ought to just stay wherever I land.” Thinking that maybe he would like it better. “Their grass is probably greener too,” he chuckled sarcastically. He was somewhat saddened again though, when he realized how little he would be leaving behind. He had just lost love again, and maybe this was one too many times.

He worried about work, figuring that he would now be fired for not showing up. But he had always hated his job anyway, so he tried his best not to stress. The thought came to his mind, that If there had ever been an opportunity to drastically change his life, it would be now. But he didn’t have his wallet, keys, phone, or cash, which only added to his tough situation. He wasn’t sure how he could get home without them, but was even more confused about what he had done to lose them in the first place.

Surely he had made mistakes before, but nothing ever like this. To wake up stranded was entirely out of character for him. “This isn’t me, I’m not this wild,” he thought to himself as he circled through possible scenarios. Had someone drugged him and dragged him here? Robbed him and sent him on his way? He had blacked out before, drinking too much, all by himself plenty of times. But had always made it home, so what had changed? He didn’t know what to make of his situation, so instead he tried his best to just get comfortable, watching out the window as the train moved fast, going somewhere.

Maybe an hour or so had passed, and he was growing antsy and somewhat fearful of the unknown. He had never liked any level of uncertainty. So he got up from his seat and started pacing back and forth throughout the car to calm his nerves. Then, just when he thought that he might be overwhelmed, he was brought to his knees and scared to hell by the sound of someone speaking.

“You made it just in time,” the voice of a woman said softly. But when he turned around there was no-one. “I’m Evie, you’re going to be okay, I promise,” he heard again, in a gentle tone just above a whisper. “What in the world?” he thought to himself, looking over both of his shoulders in disbelief. “Hello? Who’s there?” he called out fearfully, with no reply. As soon as the voice had come, it was gone again.

“Am I going crazy?” he thought out loud. It was a sweet voice, that spoke as if she cared, but that didn’t seem to calm him. Because there shouldn’t have been a voice, no-one else was there. He had already been confused, but now he was afraid. He was fully awake at this point, however. Maybe hearing her had spooked him back to life. He wasn’t sure, but it didn’t matter. All he could think was, “I need to get off this train.”

Now that he was up and agitated. The thought of crossing over to another car didn’t sound so bad. This box was the caboose it seemed, with this one door being the only exit. When he opened it, the wind whipped and whirled around and he was nearly deafened by the sound of the train roaring across the tracks. He was nervous, but with few other options, he mustered what he needed and took the leap. It wasn’t a horrible jump, but bounding from platform to platform, there was little room for error. He was relieved to have made it to the other side, but gripped as tightly as he could to the handle of the door.

Hopeful there was someone who could answer some of his questions, he opened the door to walk inside. However, he was surprised to see yet another empty car. This one however, was very different from the one he had just left. It was dim and dark inside, with the lights flickering, just out of sync of the vibration of the train. There were no private cabins or benches for people to sit. Instead there was one single chair in the center of the car, aimed towards the front. There was also an odd array of mirrors lining the walls, blocking the windows. They were beautifully framed in ornate and polished silver, but he couldn’t understand their purpose.

The grimace on the man’s face displayed an eerie suspicion. “What is all of this?” He thought to himself plainly, as he shuffled his way cautiously through the car, looking again for any hint of where he was. He was stopped dead in his tracks though when he caught a glimpse of himself in one of the mirrors. He looked horrible. His skin was sullen and pale, and his normally sharp features appeared to have sunken behind the weight of his heavily bagged eyes. It was almost as if he had aged ten years overnight. He started grabbing and rubbing his face in disbelief. Even slapping his cheeks a few times, thinking somehow that might help. Or at least, maybe wake him from whatever nightmare he was having. But when he opened his eyes again, nothing changed.

Disappointed, he brought his focus back to the train. Something didn’t feel right here. Walking through the aisle however, the single chair left him perplexed and made him pause. He couldn’t imagine the reason for it. As he got closer though, he was overcome by an interesting sensation, somewhere between curiosity and despair. He was vexed by it. The chair appeared to be an antique, and wasn’t anchored down to anything. In some odd way though, it was calling to him. Beckoning that he might take a seat. Just as he was about to touch the arm however, he was stopped and startled again, when that voice, Evie, began to speak. Jumping back and looking around anxiously, the car was still empty. But that same, near whisper, rang clearly in his ear with what sounded like poetry, “Though the darkness comes and clouds the mind, the light will shine again. But what’s found in light, the joy so bright, is family, love, and friends.” The man scoffed bitterly almost as if in tempo. “Who are you?” he called out, once again, with no reply. All he could hear was a faint echo, “Whats found in light, the joy so bright, is family, love, and friends.” In that moment, the lightbulbs flickered rapidly. Bouncing a reflection off of one of the mirrors, out of the corner of his eye, he saw what he thought was her.

He ran from that train car faster than he may have ever run before, leaping from one to the next, in absolute fear. He hadn’t ever believed in ghosts before, but right now he couldn’t believe his eyes and ears. He hadn’t gotten a good look at her, because he couldn’t bear to see it. But what he had seen was a fair brunette, maybe mid twenties, dressed in all white. This had to be some classic trope, a figment of his imagination. Perhaps a side effect of whatever had knocked him out the night before. He tried his best to stay rational, while opening the door to the next car.

Immediately, he was struck again with how glaringly different each of these compartments were. This car had a small cabin, or box, capped at the end of it. It was empty and lined with nothing but cedar. There was one other door though, with a small window that opened to the rest of the car. With a sigh of relief, he saw two people sitting apart, quietly across the room from each other. This compartment of the train appeared to be coach. There were open cedar benches with an aisle straight down the center. The two people sitting there had their backs turned towards him. He had never liked approaching strangers in public, especially not to ask a silly question like, “Where are we?” But this time he didn’t have much of a choice. So he took a moment to breathe, and walked in slowly.

There was plenty of sunlight beaming through the windows, and though this space was much less decadent than those prior, the presence of other people made it much more inviting. As he shut the door and started walking in however, he found it unusual that his loud footsteps on the hard wood didn’t gather either of their attention. Getting closer, he started growing weary of their forward and inattentive gaze.

The person closest to him, was a middle aged woman, with heavy, deep wrinkles that showcased a life of experience and hardship. The other was a man, much younger than her, who was slouched and leaning up against the wall near the front. Both were still and silent. He was uncomfortable with their dynamic, but they were his best shot at an explanation, so he approached the woman.

When he reached her bench and stood right beside her, she still had not acknowledged his existence. “Excuse me,” he called out to her, politely. But got no reply. “Excuse me, ma’am,” he continued a little louder, only to be cut off by a sharp and sudden shriek. “Go Away!” she yelled, now glaring at him harshly, with dead eyes and gnashing teeth. “Run away like you always do! You good for nothing scum!” she continued. The man in the corner was now weeping to himself softly. Glancing over to him and then again to her, he was taken aback by this reaction. “I just want to know where this train is headed,” he replied, with his hands raised slightly as if to show that he wasn’t a threat. “We are going nowhere, you imbecile!” she hollered back in a raspy tone at full volume. Now repositioning herself towards him, with an aggressive posture. He stepped back away quickly, in hope of deescalating the situation, but her hateful gaze followed.

Walking backwards towards the front of the car, he overheard the man sobbing to himself, “I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry!” He continued, “Stupid! Stupid Dennis! Stupid!” This caught the man’s attention, but he fled the car as quickly as he could when he and the sobbing man made eye contact, and just beyond the tears was a look of surprised as though he had recognized him.

Hurdling himself over to the next car, he stopped for a moment in exasperation. “How did he know my name?” Dennis thought to himself. “He couldn’t have been talking to me, could he? I have never seen him before in my life” he asserted. “Where the hell am I?” rattled through his brain as the stress of the day was becoming too much for him.

Dennis wasn’t a religious man by any means. He had lost touch with any notion of God years before. But in this moment, gripping for life to the back of this railcar, he found himself crying out to anything for help. “Please take me home,” he whimpered softly, confused and almost too afraid to step into the next compartment. This day had been stranger than he ever could have imagined.

His body was growing weak again, maybe as a result of the mental strain. But he clung to that door for several minutes, standing as firmly as he could on that small platform. Unsure what his next move should be, and thats when he heard her again, Evie. It sounded like she was singing, but the noise of the train made it difficult to make out what she sang. He was still horrified by the thought of her, but whatever she was, she had a lovely voice. Despite the stress and racket, her singing actually started to soothe him, and surprisingly, Dennis found himself feeling light and full of energy again.

When the singing stopped after a few minutes, and he was calm enough to think, Dennis thought it wise to enter into the next car. Looking back for a moment through the window of the previous, he was nearly scared to death when he saw that old woman pressed against the glass, glaring at him. Recoiling as quickly as he could, he turned the handle to the door he had clung to and fled inside. This car was much like the first, but not nearly as nice. There were private cabins, but any of the cushions that remained were tattered and stained, and all of the wood and trim was cracked and aged. The inconsistency of the train was bothering him. Something strange was going on here. So as he explored, he took his time and displayed caution with every turn. From the aisle, visibility wasn’t great. Some of the cabins had their blinds or doors open, while others were closed off and shut. He nervously knocked and opened a few, but then overheard someone speaking from somewhere in the front of the car.

As he pedaled his feet quietly in that direction, with the nerves of the potential, at full tilt. He quickly ducked away into an empty cabin as a door on the left slid open rapidly and a person sped across the hall. He couldn’t make out what this person was saying. They were mumbling frantically to themselves, and tossing things around like they were looking for something. Dennis took a moment, but then approached. When he reached the cabin, he saw a woman, who was roughly his same age. She was pacing back and forth, with one hand on her forehead and the other anchored firmly on her waist. She seemed agitated to say the least. Dennis knocked on the cabin door to try and get her attention, and as he did, startled and wide-eyed she let out a screech, “Ahhh!” Jumping to the back of the cabin out of shock. Dennis quickly tried his best to calm her. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you! I was just wondering if you could tell me where this train was going?” he said to her softly. Sliding down onto one of the benches and holding tightly to her chest, she started rocking back and forth nervously. “Are you okay?” Dennis asked kindly, but he could see clearly on her face that she was not. “This train doesn’t ever stop!” she laughed hysterically. “Unless it were to jump the rails,” she continued, clamming back into her shell. “What do you mean?” Dennis asked, perplexed by her and her statement. “You’re aboard the train to nowhere, my dear,” she retorted, with a halfway, puzzled grin. “We just go on and on and on and on, until everything we know has been forgotten.” She added, now biting at her finger nails and gazing off into the distance. She didn’t seem to blink much, until perhaps she would remember, and then blink all of her blinks, all at once. “Is there anyone else here?” Dennis asked. As her antics were putting him even further on edge. “There used to be joy here, we used to run and play and hide and seek, but one day there was no one good left to be found,” she said, twirling around and reenacting what must have been a memory, until she fell to her knees and broke down into tears. “Nellie, would you shut up for once in your life?” A raspy male voice hollered out, from a couple cabins down.

Happy to hear another person, one who might have their head screwed on straight, Dennis wandered over to the other cabin. “Don’t leave me!” Nellie screeched, sticking to his side, as if she were dependent on him. “Hello?” Dennis called out, as he slid open the door to peek inside. With smoke billowing out of the cabin, “What do you want?” the man replied, after taking a long drag on his cigarette. “I, I was just wondering if you could tell me where this train was headed?” Dennis asked once again. “Ha! Do you hear this guy?” He said out loud, speaking to nothing. “Likely nowhere better than before,” replying, inattentively. He was a burly, bearded man, wearing tattered clothes, all riddled with holes and cigarette burns. “What do you mean?” Dennis asked. “Dear Lord, enough with the inquisition!” the burly man blurted out. “It’s only downhill from here,” he continued, displaying his agitation. “I don’t understand…” Dennis said, looking back at Nellie who was cowering behind his shoulder. “What he’s saying…” Nellie started to reply, “WHAT I MEAN IS,” the man cut her off, standing up and approaching them slowly, “I would start to count your days, but nothing ever changes, here.” He continued, flicking his cigarette butt into Dennis’s chest. Jumping back and sensing his aggression, Dennis started shuffling backwards in the direction that he came. Nellie right on his heels, whispered nervously over and over, twiddling her fingers together, “Nothing ever changes here, Nothing ever changes, Nothing ever, Nothing.”

“I wasn’t trying to start any problems,” Dennis said, hoping to calm him down. “But your problems just keep coming don’t they?” The burly man replied, walking them down, all the way to the back of the car. “You have never seemed to get it, have you?” He continued on, as if he and Dennis had a history. “You won’t ever get to where you’re going!” He added, loudly.

Almost instinctively, and now more baffled than ever, Dennis turned and ran towards the door. He didn’t want to stay or hear any more of what this man had to say. Swinging open the door and leaping back to the previous car, Nellie let out a screech and tried to follow suit. However, she didn’t have the footing and fell onto the tracks, nearly pulling Dennis with her. Swept under the train, she was gone. “Oh my God!” Dennis screamed out, traumatized by what he had just seen. “Why would you do that?” He cried out, looking down in disbelief. But he pulled himself back up and opened the door to the car when he saw the burly man reaching out for him. Slamming the door behind him, he stumbled, bumping into the seat with the sobbing man. They made eye contact again, this time though, his eyes were pitch black. Dennis rushed as fast as he could to the back of the car, horrified. “I SAID GO AWAY!” the angry woman screamed, slapping him in the back of the head hard, as he ran by, jolting his vision for a moment. When he came to however, shocked, he saw Nellie sitting on the bench right next to him, rocking back and forth nervously, “Nothing ever changes,” she whispered. He screamed out of surprise and then tripped, falling face first onto the floor. Scuttling back to his feet as quickly as he could, he made a break for the exit. With everyone’s vision set on him.

Now again in the mirrored car, Dennis hastily grabbed the chair that was sitting there in the center and jammed it into the handle of the door, wedging it shut. He paced around for a moment, gripping tightly again to his forehead, but then collapsed onto his knees and broke down in tears. “What is happening to me?” He called out, quivering. “I just want to go home!” he cried, crumbling under the weight of his anxiety. That same tired and lifeless feeling started flooding his system as he thought about what they had told him. “What does it mean that we are going nowhere?” He thought to himself. He stayed on the floor for quite a while, until finally his weeping stopped and he could muster the strength to stand. He was weak still though, so he grabbed the chair from the door and went to sit down. No one was pursuing him anymore.

When his butt hit the seat though, some of the flickering lights popped and half of the mirrors throughout the car shattered at once. Broken glass flew everywhere, even nicking Dennis on his right cheek. “Ahh!” he hollered out, “What is wrong with this place?” he continued, shaking in his boots. “Nothing ever changes, if nothing ever changes,” rang out clearly in the soft whisper of Evie’s voice again. “What are you?” Dennis hollered out in his frustration, looking around the car frantically. Thats when he caught a glimpse of her again, but this time he wasn’t running. She was a beautiful reflection coming off of one of the side mirrors. When he turned his head to get a better look though, she disappeared. All he could see was a blurry version of himself sitting in that chair. Perplexed, he approached the mirror. As he stepped closer though, he was horror struck when the blurry image of himself in the mirror shifted and morphed into that of the angry woman from the car ahead. He turned and stepped back, frightened to see the burly man in another, and Nellie and the weeping lad in the two mirrors across the car. He couldn’t escape them.

Immediately he felt himself cowering inward, wanting to flee to a different car. However, he paused for a moment, realizing that they were mimicking his movements. “What is going on?” He thought to himself as he approached the mirror with the older woman again. Getting closer, he noticed that she also had a cut on her right cheek, and that somehow she appeared eerily familiar. He hadn’t noticed that about her before. Rushing over to the others, they all did too. They looked kind of like him, or at least some odd version of him. He was flabbergasted. “Are they… me?” he questioned. “No, they can’t be! Thats impossible!” he argued to himself. But nothing about this day had seemed possible. Inspecting the situation a little closer, he noticed, etched finely at the bottom of each mirror was a title. They read, Anger, Wrath, Anxiety, and Gloom. The other mirrors, those that had shattered, read, Hope, Joy, Love, and Peace. With one odd mirror out, Kindness, that displayed the sullen and sunken version of him that he had seen earlier. “I don’t understand!” he yelled out in frustration. This had to mean something. He called out to God, but heard nothing. Until Evie’s voice came back with more poetry. “No matter where you’re headed, no matter where you’ve been. If you don’t like where life is going, check the thoughts inside your head. If they are poor with no control, then truly they must change. But no-one else will do it for you, only you can stop that train.” She said. “Are these my thoughts?” He wondered to himself. “Or maybe aspects of my personality? Why are these ones shattered?” He continued.

All of a sudden, things started to make more sense to him. Lately, he had been incredibly depressed, more than he ever let himself believe. He had been drinking everyday to numb the pain of his break ups and hardships, instead of allowing himself to heal. He had felt somewhat as if he had been losing touch with who he was, only growing more bitter and angry by the day. But he had convinced himself that he was fine. He broke back into tears however when he realized that those shattered mirrors could resemble just how broken he had become. At least when it came to hope, love, joy, and peace. Like unused muscles they could have atrophied.

He still couldn’t imagine how he had gotten here on this train, and wasn’t sure what it all meant. But if who he met here even remotely resembled who he had become or who he was becoming, he knew that something needed to change. This experience had been one of the worst of his life, and he would do anything to leave. But he didn’t have a clue how. Until he thought again about what Evie had said a moment ago, “No-one else will do it for you, only you can stop that train.”

In a stir of either inspiration or desperation, he went off to do just that. He sprinted as quickly as he could through the different cars, avoiding everyone as best he could. There were several other cars ahead of those, and he was surprised to see that they were more run down and ratty as he traveled through. The last one before the locomotive was hardly put together. After having to dodge sections of the roof that were caving in and jumping over holes in the floorboards and almost falling to his demise a couple times, he finally made it to the locomotive. Kicking open the door to the locomotive, he was shocked to learn that the train had no conductor. It had been roaring down the tracks with no control. He didn’t know how to shut the engine down. So he looked around and found what appeared to be the emergency brake, and despite his better judgement, he pulled it back as hard as he could. The train shuddered and squealed along the tracks, bringing the train to a sudden halt. But in that process, Dennis was thrown forward into the control panel, causing him to black out after hitting his head.

“Beep… Beep… Beep…” Dennis heard as he stirred back awake. “Ughh, where am I?” Dennis blurted out wiping the long sleep off of his eyes. “Welcome back from the dead,” the doctor said to him. “No, no, stay on the bed for now, you’ve been asleep for a little while.” The doctor continued, checking Dennis’s vitals. “What happened?” he asked, confused. “You have been in an alcohol induced coma for the past several days, you are lucky to be alive.” The doctor replied. “I what?” Dennis asked. “Just rest for now, I’ll explain more later. You have a visitor who would like to see you.” The doctor smiled. “I do?” Dennis asked confused. “Oh yes, she has been checking in on you everyday since she brought you here. She saved your life, you know. Found you laid out, unconscious on the side of the street.” He added, waving her in. As she turned the corner, Dennis’s jaw fell to the floor. “Evie...?” He said, bewildered. She smiled back to him, sitting down, “I wondered if you could hear me. It’s nice to finally meet you.” She said, grabbing his hand gently. “You were on a one way trip to nowhere it seemed,” she added. “Yeah, but I think you might have saved me,” Dennis replied, smiling back and starry eyed.