Home in the Sky

All around me, the sounds of people. I look for them, but I can’t see them. All that exists is blurs of colors rushing past and vague shapes.

And the sounds. “Are we meeting at the café today?” “Hey, watch where you’re going!”

Buildings rise around me and fall again. Roads stretch on and on before being scraped away. And the sounds. They wend on forever. I try to close my eyes but I have no lids. I try to walk, but my feet are glued to the ground.

“Last week’s meeting was the worst.” “Are you okay?” “How’d you do on the exam?” “Let’s go camping this weekend!”

I try to cover my ears, but my hands are glued to my sides. Like a racecar on a circular track, my heart rages, repeating the same cyclical beat.

“I broke up with Katie.” A building is demolished nearby. “Haha, look at this!” A bridge is built to my left. “Why are you crying?” And here fresh paint covers the current structures. “Oh, careful! That’s a deep puddle!” “Are you okay?”

“Hey! Wake up!”

Someone is shaking me. I look behind me, but there’s nothing save for the colors racing past me.

“Wake up! Someone, get help!”

Jarring, shaking. My feet come loose from what pins them to the floor. I sit up, and my eyes open.

Part I: Stranded

“Woah! You almost hit me!” Someone cries.

I pant like a rabid dog, my stomach churns aggressively within my gut. Ahead of me there is a small playground. Where am I?

“Easy, easy!” Someone is patting my back. “Here, let’s get you to a window.”

A window?

Outside there's clouds shimmering with light from the sun. Are we on an airplane?

They help me to the window, their hand reaches past me to open it.

Wait… “Wait!” I cough.

Here slides the glass, upward, and cold wind strikes my face. Unable to speak more, I retch out the window. I pant out my exhaustion, and I look to my right.

Train cars. A long line of… train cars. Each has a short wooden plank sticking out below the window; they block line of sight to the ground. Water runs along the sides of the train car, washing away the undesirables I left.

“Ah, come back in, you’ll get soaked out there!”

At last, I can see my helper. He’s a tall and lean man, chiseled features with a smooth face. Green eyes look at me with confusion, his crow-like face is tight with worry. Sculpted blonde hair piles atop his head like whipped cream, and his lean body is adorned with a full body suit, blue with black stitching and an open fishnet pattern that reveals the sides of his legs and his ribs in a small slit.

A million questions flood my tongue, fighting over each other for priority. I stare at him until at last he says: “I’ve… never seen you before. Did you sneak on this home during the last connection?”

Home? Connection?

“I’m Salex, you can call me Sax for short. My pronouns are he/him. Who’re you?”

Me? My name? I’m… “Kamilon… I’m Kamilon... Use they/them.”

“Kamilon? What a weird name, it sounds old.” He stands sharply and exclaims: “Oh! I’m so sorry, that was rude! I’ve just never heard a name like that before.”

“I’ve never heard a name like Salex.”

He tips his head to the side. “Uh… How? It’s a common name. That’s why I go by Sax.”

I look around me expecting to see a train’s interior, but the far wall of the train is nearly fifty feet away. That playground I saw earlier, it takes up the center of the train car and benches are set up around it. Grass grows under artificial lights, the walls to my left and right are far away.

“What… kind of train is this? Where am I?” I step, listening to the grass crunch beneath my shoes.

“Train?” Sax’s tin-like voice says. “I don’t see a train anywhere.”

“What are you talking about?” I look at him. “A train, that’s what we’re on right now.”

Sax looks down at the grass; he picks his feet up one at a time, looking beneath them.

“What are you doing?”

“I don’t think we’re on a train, just grass.” Sax frowns at me. “You’re weird, Kamilon.”

I’m weird? “This. What do you call this box we’re in?”

“Are you talking about the room? We just call this room the playground. Didn’t you have one on your home?”

“I had a playground down the road from my house, but nothing like this.”

“What’s a road?” Sax asks.

I shake my head; what kind of weird prank is this? I walk to the door on my right.

“Hey, wait! Kamilon, where are you going?”

My hand connects with the chilled handle of the door and I open it. Icy wind tackles me, swirls around my sides and legs like seaweed at the bottom of a lake. The sounds of a train chugging along reach me on the wind. Here there is a wide balcony connecting the two train cars. Accordion-style walls are built to the left and right sides; above, there is just sky.

I try to see around the balcony, below it, anything, but the ground is still blocked from sight.

“Kamilon…” Sax calls from behind.

I ignore him and enter through the door across from me. There is an aisle wide enough to fit a normal sized train. On either side of the aisle are doors with numbers on them.

The door closes behind me; I take three steps forward, and-

“Which house is yours?”

Every hair on my body rises. I glare behind me at…

Sax. Who is still following me.

“House?” I ask him. “What house?”

Sax points down the aisle. “These houses. Do you live in this room?”

Room? “This train has houses on it?”

“Why do you keep mentioning trains? Are you missing yours or something?”

I blink at him. “This. This thing we’re standing on. It’s a train.”

Again, Sax looks at his feet. “It looks like a rug to me… Unless you want to wear heavy nylon to your wedding.”

“This whole thing.” I snap. “These ‘rooms,’ they’re train cars. You know what a train is, right?”

"Of course. The fabric that is worn as part of a wedding dress."

A corner of my lip lifts. “What moves these rooms?”

Sax points past me. “Up ahead, there’s an engine room. It pulls our home along.”

I’m not getting anywhere… “Where I come from, a ‘train’ is a bunch of cars, like the ones we’re standing in, connected and pulled by an engine. Normally they’re also on rails or train tracks.” I think for a moment while Sax’s green eyes try to stab through my mind. “But if a train falls off its tracks, it’s still a train… so I guess the track part isn’t necessary for it to be a train.”

“Kamilon… what home did you come from… No, where did you come from?”

I stare at him. “I… I don’t know… I went to bed last night at ten,” like always, after fighting with my mom. “That’s the last thing I remember before waking up here. And… I had a weird dream, it felt like time itself was…”

Sax stares at me for a moment.

“Sax… What year is it?”

And he stares at me like I’ve grown a second head. “You don’t know? It’s 3104. What year did you think it was?”

I stare at the ground. “When I went to bed… it was 2022.”

“What?!” Sax shouts. “Okay, now I KNOW you’re messing with me. We don’t have any records that go back that far!”

“Excuse me?” I snap. “There’s thousands of records of the 20th century! It’s all on the internet!”

“Internet…” Sax mumbles.

“Oh lord… you don’t even know what internet is…” I shake my head angrily. “Where’s your library? Do you know what a library is?!”

“Of course I do!” He shouts.

“Okay then Sax, take me there!”

He stares at me indifferently.

“…Please.”

He smiles and spins on his heels. Back outside we travel, where the icy wind steals the warmth from me, beyond the playground, and through the far set of doors. Salex puts his hand on the metal handle, and over his shoulder, he gives me a smile. Sunlight pours into the room like a flooding river as he swings the door wide.

I wait to see the holograms beyond… but this room is disappointingly "normal." Desks are set up in cubicle spaces, something like strobe lights move on matrix like rails attached to the ceiling. I try to sit down at the nearest desk, but Salex stops me. “Do you know how this works?”

I shake my head.

“Okay. I’ll give you a crash course.” He raises his hand, and one of the strobe lights rushes to us. “Think of what you want to search for. Be as specific as possible.”

How do I be specific with my thoughts?

The strobe light above us flashes once. It beeps.

“Wow, you really haven’t done this before.”

“What? What did I do wrong?”

Sax smiles. “You need to hold the thought you want to look up for three to five seconds, until the light stops flashing.”

Blink. Beep.

I grimace. “Is this thing… reading my mind?”

“Yes and no.” Salex says. “It ‘knows’ what you’re thinking, but it’s just a robot.”

And suddenly, I feel violated, watched, like a large bug is crawling up my spine. “What do you mean it’s ‘just a robot?’ It’s reading my private thoughts!”

Blink. Beep.

“It’s not an AI!” Salex chuckles. “It can’t make sense of the things it reads and it doesn’t record them. It’s like…” Salex frowns and stares at the ceiling. “It’s like talking to a dog. They can ‘hear’ what you’re saying, but it doesn’t make any sense to them.”

“How do you know it’s not recording?!” I snap.

Blink. Beep.

“Because it can’t. That’s not a function it’s capable of.”

“But what if it develops the ability to record?! What if someone programs it to record?!”

Salex and I stare at each other.

Blink. Beep.

“Wow… this is really a problem for you, isn’t it? Okay… just tell me what you want to look up and I’ll do it.”

“Forests.” I exclaim. “Roads! Skyscrapers! Cars!”

“Hey, hey!” Salex shakes me. “One thing at a time. I’ll start with forests.”

Blink. Blink. Blink.

The light condenses into a cube on the desk. Salex picks the cube up and shakes it tauntingly at me.

“What’s that?”

“Be patient.” Salex pinches the cube on opposite sides and pulls. It expands beyond his hand, beyond the scope of our desk, and suddenly, we are surrounded by trees. I walk over to one and rest my hand on it.

It feels real. It smells real. “What… happened?” I ask.

“What do you mean?”

I start walking to the next tree, but Salex stops me. “You don’t need to walk…” He makes a few motions with his hands, squeezing, rotating. The tree rushes toward me; I jump and scream, it comes closer, closer…!

And then, it passes through me.

Around us, the forest rotates. Another tree rushes at me from afar; I block with my hands and cringe.

“Hahaha!”

I open my eyes to find the forest gone, the cube sits on the computer desk again. Salex puts a hand on his forehead. “I’ve never seen someone scream at a search box before!”

Heat steals over my face as I blush. “Don’t blame me! I’ve never seen anything like this before!”

Salex leans is arm over the chair. “You… Kamilon, are you really from the past?”

And fear replaces the anger I felt. “Is this… really the future?”

In that moment, eternity stretched around us as the reality of our situations finally set in.

I was someone from the past, somehow stranded in the year 3104.

Blink. Beep.

Part II: The Home in the Sky

There is no record of any roads, no skyscrapers, nothing from the 20th century.

Nothing exists from my home; there’s no evidence that I didn’t just dream everything up. “Forests” only exist as potted trees that grow in the caboose of the train, where there is no ceiling. Twice a day there is a “connection,” wherein another train pulls up beside ours and connects to our train along the balconies between the train cars. The morning connection is a supply train that brings food, water, wood, grass and flower seeds, cotton.

The second connection happens in the evening, just before dinner. A nearby passenger train connects around this time, and for several hours, people are free to mingle between the two trains. People can even switch trains if they want, but there’s no guarantee that these two trains will ever connect again. If you switch trains by the time the connection ends at midnight, you may never see your friends and family from your original train again.

I found this terribly sad, but Salex reassures me we can still connect to them using the library so long as we search for them while they are searching for us.

“Do they also feel real when you connect with them? In the library?”

“Yeah, how else would they feel, fake?”

I shut my mouth.

“I’m guessing you don’t have a place to stay.” Salex frowns at me.

I don’t answer.

“Okay, you can stay with me.”

“Will your family mind?”

Salex chuckles darkly. “No, they won’t.”

We head up the aisle, which is bustling with people; many are meeting for the first time, many for the final time.

“Excuse me… excuse me, please.” Salex grabs my wrist and pulls me gently through the crowd. Four train cars later, Salex pauses outside a blue door rimmed with orange. He motions to it. “This is me.” With a nervous smile, he puts his thumb on a little black circle; the door clicks open. Salex motions for me to step inside.

Nerves overtake me as I step into the home of a stranger.

It’s a nice space, larger than I imagined. The ceilings are vaulted, higher than the aisles, the living space we’ve entered is about twenty feet to the far wall. A door is cracked open ten feet to our left; it leads to a hallway. An archway opens to a lovely dining area on the right.

Salex follows me in and shuts the door behind. He takes off his shoes and heads to the dining room. “What do you want for dinner?” He calls.

“Uh… The food here is probably different than what I’m used to…”

He peeks his head out from the arch and frowns. “That’s… probably true. Okay, we’ll start with something simple tonight.”

I walk over and find dinner already on the table, something that looks like a single massive pasta shell with red filling. Big green leaves are positioned like a series of V’s over the top of the pasta shell and some strange orange dressing is drizzled over that.

I stare at it for a moment and then give it a try.

It’s delicious: sweet and savory with a tangy lemon taste to it; my nerves vanish. We eat in silence for a few minutes before Salex sets his silverware down and rests his elbow on the table. He presses his cheek into the back of his hand and gives me a look with eternity shimmering in his green eyes.

“What…?” I ask. Filling falls from my lip and I cringe, quickly rubbing it away.

He chuckles. “Tell me about your home. What’s it like?”

I nearly choke; I cough and sputter. “What… My home?”

Salex nods.

How do you explain an entire world to someone who can’t even understand the concept of a road? To someone who has never seen the ground, or forests that stretch on for miles, a path you can walk all day and night and never see its end? I stare at the ground for a long time.

Salex seems to understand; he smiles gently and says: “Hey. Why don’t you start with trains?”

Trains. I laugh. Such a simple ledge to leap off of... Why not?

“Salex… do you have something I can write on? Or draw on?”

He nods.

“Okay. I’m going to need it.”

And so we sit for hours at the table with a cube similar to the one from the library, a space that I can expand and create whatever I want within. I build for him my world, my home. I recreated in that little square space around the dining table the neighborhood I’d walked a thousand times, the home I’d stepped from a thousand times. Even my mother, who I fought with every single day. I can still hear her voice telling me: you’re clearly smarter than me, so explain to me how you can be genderless when I wiped your vagina every day for years.

I stare at a recreation of her face I made, imperfect but close enough that it pierces my soul. You just… don’t understand, you’re too close minded for me to explain.

I gave birth to a daughter. That is what you are, that is what you'll always be.

You can’t escape reality, Kamie!

And here I stand, reaching for her nonexistent face; here, I realize I may never see her again.

“I… had some problems with my family, too.” Salex says softly. I can just barely see the left half of his chiseled face behind my mother’s face, staring at me with a sadness that grows in the space between us. “They abused me for a very long time.” He says. “I was a disappointment… because I was born with a creative mind, and not a logical one. They thought I could just change… to be logical. But that’s not how the mind works.” He steps beside me, and somehow that awful sadness feels a little smaller. “When I was fourteen, I packed what little I had… and I switched during the next connection. And the next night, I switched to a new connection. And the night after that… and the night after that, until I was so far from them, there was no chance they would ever find me again.” Salex spreads his arms out and shrinks the cube back to its normal size. He sets it on the table, where its weight becomes oppressively large beside me. He looks up to the glass ceiling above us, watching the starlight dance past our line of sight like hands over a piano. “A world that stretches on forever… I wish I could see it.”

“It should be right beneath our feet, Salex.” My mouth twitches with discomfort. “Right… under our feet.”

Salex’s green eyes train down on me; he smiles sadly. “You should write a book about your world, so I can read it every day.” He looks at the time and runs a hand through his hair sheepishly. “Wow… it’s late, the connection’s already over. Sorry Kamilon, I wanted to show you how the connections work, so you could see another home. Or… another train, I guess… I just got so caught up in your story!” His smile brightens, but it doesn’t touch his eyes. “You can sleep in the spare room down the hall, if you need anything, I’ll be right next door, okay?”

I nod. “Okay. Goodnight Salex.”

“Please call me Sax, it makes me feel original than the hundred other Salex’s.”

“Okay… but Sax,” I frown. “To me, you are the original Salex.”

He turns his head quickly; from where I stand, I can see his ears turning red. “Goodnight, Kamilon.”

I watch his back until his door closes.

Part III: Save us

That look in his eye… the sadness there. I wish I could see it.

I stand before a black door; steam pumps from above the wall, the sound of the train’s engine chugging along is more oppressive by the second.

This is it… the engine room.

In my hand, the knife shines under liquid moonlight. I’ll just threaten them… nothing more.

I open the door.

This room is as wide as the train, but only extends about ten feet forward. The front is one massive window with a plank extending out; I cannot see the ground. A control panel runs along the length of the train; two men turn to look at me, dressed in official blue gear.

“Hello.” The left one says to me.

“It’s a bit late for visitors.” The right one says with a smile.

I inhale sharply... and kick off the ground with my back foot. I'm across the room in seconds, my knife pressed to Lefty's throat. “Take us down, now.”

“Woah… Miss, there’s no need for that…” Righty says.

“Nothin’ down there but more clouds.” Lefty says nervously. “We can go down if you insist.”

“I do.” I tell them. “Because there’s more than just clouds down there. Volcanoes, mountains, oceans, valleys, a thousand years isn't enough time for all those to suddenly disappear.”

Righty shakes his head. “You’re insane… using made-up words…”

I thought so… These conductors don’t know what’s going on either. How far up does this lie go? Pressing the blade firmer into lefty’s neck, I feel a warm trickle touch my fingers. “Take us down. Now.”

“Just… do it, she’ll realize she’s nuts.”

Righty nods nervously and angles the train down. Our descent is a long arduous three hours... until the front window is filled with gray fog.

Pang! Pit! Pit! Pang!

Rain, thumping against the train. Ten minutes pass, then twenty. As I watch the window, I can only hope we’re over ground and not over the ocean.

From the fog like a great behemoth comes a massive entity. I panic and for several precious seconds, I forget altogether how to speak. “The… It’s… There! It’s there, watch out!” I shout.

Both conductors snap their attention to the window.

“What the hell is that?!” Righty shouts. He shakes his head and starts moving around the control panel. “I need my co-conductor, release him, please!”

I take the blade from his throat and step back. Lefty quickly snatches the controls.

We are seconds from hitting it, a mountain. The train yanks sharply to the left.

Too late.

Our right side scrapes loudly against the mountain, metal screeches, explosions and tremors rocket through the train. I’m breathing heavily as we stabilize again; Righty and Lefty look at each other, their eyes wide. They slowly turn to me, mouths agape.

“That…” I tell them. “Was a mountain.”

Like mindless fish, they continue to gawk at me.

“Eyes forward boys, let’s make sure we don’t hit anything else on our way down.”

We’re below the cloud layer now; the rain makes it tough to see, visibility is low. Thirty minutes, now forty.

There… I see it. Below us is the ground.

“Those are some thick clouds…” Lefty says nervously.

“They aren’t clouds, it’s the ground.” I say. “We made it.”

“Gentlemen, we’re coming in a little fast…! Hitting the ground is going to be like running into another train- uh, home! It’s going to be like running into another home! But this home can’t move out of the way, and we can’t dodge it.”

“What?!” Righty shouts.

The blood drains from Lefty’s face.

“Slow us down!”

They look at each other, eyes wide. In a flash they leap into action, pulling levers and sliding dials. The train lurches as it suddenly slows… and then, it starts rising again.

“Oh no.” I tell them, my knife glinting within my fingers. “We’re going down there gentlemen, steady our course.”

“This home isn’t meant to stop!” Righty shouts.

I smile and step closer to them. “Then I suppose this is going to be a crash landing.”

“You’re insane!” Lefty shouts.

I charge and throw Lefty over the controls, the knife pressing deeply against his back. “Take us down, as slow as you can.”

“You’re just a young thing, you wouldn’t hurt us.” Lefty fights against me. “Get off me!”

I just wanted to threaten them… I had no intention of…

I didn’t mean to.

In my excitement, I stab the knife deeply into Lefty’s back, and pull it out again. “Take us. To the ground.”

“I won’t put these people in danger!” He shouts.

And I stab him again. “Take us down!”

And again, I stab him again. And again. And again. He gasps, he sputters, he weakly falls against the controls. Once my hand releases him, he slumps to the floor, and my attention turns to Righty.

“Please… my spouse, she’s about to give birth to our first child… I want to meet our sweet Giah…” He begs me.

I twist the knife in my hand. “Then you’d better give us a safe landing, or you’ll never meet your child.”

His face white, he directs us back to the ground.

Thirty feet, now twenty.

We’re still going too fast.

“Come on, we need to take cover!” I shout at Righty. I run to the door, but he doesn’t follow. “Idiot, don’t you want to meet your child?!”

“Yes…” He says quietly. “But if I want Giah and Renni to survive… I need to give them a safe landing. And I want that more than I want to meet Giah…”

What have I done…? I stare at the body of Lefty, and ask myself again… What have I done?!

I run through the door and direct the passengers to take cover. We barely brace ourselves before the train crashes into the ground. The engine room is crushed; we skid through a forest.

At last, the home in the sky has stopped. One by one, the passengers step from within the train’s protective bosom to the outside world. Their eyes stare at the infinity that stretches on before them, paths that can be walked for miles with no end, trees that grow so wide you can’t wrap your arms around them, a mountain so tall it pierces the sky itself.

Momentarily forgotten are Lefty and Righty, who gave their lives to get us to the ground. I stare with an endless feeling of happiness at their faces.

I did it.

I saved…?

Grrrrrraaawwwwlll…

What was… that?

Graaugh!

A scream comes to the left. I look over in a panic and see…

A horrible, mutated beast tearing into a young girl.

And another scream to my right. Someone is being dragged away by another mutated beast.

“Everyone, get into the train!” I shout.

But it’s not called a train to them; they don’t know what I’m talking about.

"Get back on the train...?" I shout, but the beasts tear into the metal of the train. With their claws, they rend it easily, they pull from within the residents who chose to remain inside.

And suddenly, a beastly cry comes right beside me. I turn in alarm and see a mutated beast leaping at my throat. I cringe, I cry as its teeth come for me.

And then… it passes through me.

I gasp and pant, I cringe and cry; I watch everyone else aboard the train be torn apart, be ripped from their beds, pulled from the only home they know.

Why not me?

We can still connect to them using the library so long as we search for them while they are searching for us.

I wish I could see it.

I switched to a new connection, until there was no chance they would ever find me again.

You can’t escape reality, Kamie!

…as long as we search for them while they are searching for us…

We can still connect to them.

More beasts leap through my body, unable to harm me.

But why… why was I able to hurt the conductor? Why… was I able to do what I did?

That knife… I got it from Salex’s house, it didn’t come from somewhere else like I did. And I can only stand here, watching as the beasts come in droves to feast on the people I "saved."

And then, I hear my name.

“Kamilon! Kamilon, help me!”

I turn in alarm. Salex is standing atop the train, kicking at a beast as it claws its way towards him.

No… Not Salex…

“Help me, please!”

Like lightning has flooded my veins, I throw myself up the side of the train, using a nearby tree to aid me. I run to his side, he looks at me…

Right as the beast grabs his leg in its filthy mouth.

I grab Salex’s arm as he is pulled from the top of the train. He cries and screams, he kicks at the beast. A second one leaps from the ground and snatches his other leg. Salex screams, he cries. “Please! Help me, please help me!”

“Save me!” He screams.

My grip is slipping; heavy, they’re too heavy. I watch Salex fall from the train, watch his head hit the ground, I watch the beasts pounce on his body.

I stand alone atop the train, the beasts leaping through my body, and I watch everyone die.

This isn't the end, it can't be.

Salex... he contacted me from the past, he brought me all the way here to his future.

And I'm still here.

I throw myself down the side of the train, I run through its interior. Bodies surround me, feral beasts leap through holes, they push their snarling faces through doors, through walls.

The library, one more train car and I'll be there.

Salex is looking for a friend, he's looking for a way to escape. I can give him that, and I'm searching for him.

The robots above still work; one comes over and blinks above me. I think about Salex, I picture him in my head, the house he sleeps in, the cube he keeps in his room.

Blink. Beep.

I don't stop, I think of him again, I think of the past.

Blink. Blink. Blink.

And a cube drops, it expands without my touching it, and there, laying on the desk, was a past version of Salex.

I caught him while he's asleep... is he dreaming?

"Salex!" I shout.

He stirs, he opens his eyes, he sits up slightly.

"Salex, I don't know if I have time, so listen to me! You need to pack your bags, if you see a girl that looks like me, switch trains, er... switch homes at the next connection!" And a new thought occurs to me. "And remove all the knives from your house! Don't go to the-"

He disappears.

"Ground! Salex? Salex!" I shout.

If I didn't have the knife, Lefty would be alive, we wouldn't be down here!

The world crumbles around me, pieces of the mistake I made falling into some vast void.

And then, I too disappear.

********

"Woah! You almost hit me!" Someone cries, a man.

I pant like a rabid dog, my stomach churns horridly within its prison of flesh.

"You look familiar..." He says near me. "Have we met?"

I roll over and throw up in the grass below my hands.