Live & Learn

I woke up screaming . . . sort of.

It was just the tail end of a scream, really. I must've been screaming before I woke up, which carried into my waking life, like that feeling of falling in a dream just to find yourself flailing out of sleep.

Sitting up, I surveyed my surroundings. I was on a grey cot in a private room, which was a blessing, seeing as I was stark naked. The ground rumbled slightly as the room swayed back and forth. All around me, I could hear a loud mechanical cacophony.

Was I on a train?

Weird.

Something about it felt familiar, but I had no recollection of buying a ticket, or even boarding.

I scratched my head, trying to recall how I got here.

As I reached back in my memory, there was a block. I could recall big things, important information, and formative memories, but nothing more recent than childhood. My name was Will, my parents were Daren and Lila, I was raised in Hackensack, and I had a brother named Tommy.

Questions like, "How old was I?”, "What did I do for work?" and most importantly, "Why was I on a train with no bags, completely nude?" all eluded me.

I swung my bare feet off the cot's edge and dropped to the wood floor. There was a singular light overhead, offering much to be desired in illumination. It gave the room a bland, empty feel.

There was a window on one side of the cabin; the curtains were drawn shut. On the opposite wall was a door.

I crossed to the window first, pulling the curtains aside to see if I could at least make out what sort of landscape I was traveling over.

What I saw nearly made me weep in awe.

Outside my small cabin window, I saw fields of lush green grass. The sky overhead was a brilliant cerulean blue. Fat puffy clouds hung lazily overhead, reflecting the last vestiges of a sunny day.

Though the vista was beautiful, it wasn't the picturesque landscape that gave me such a visceral reaction; it was the rest of the scene.

Amongst the tall grass, there were people. They were mingling freely, some dancing, others laughing and sharing bits of merriment, others still lounged contentedly amongst the rippling sea of green.

My eyes were drawn unbidden to four figures.

The first two, a man and woman holding hands chattering happily, paused mid-conversation. Our eyes met, and their smiles tilted up even higher. My mother and father were younger; I had only seen them look that way in photos.

They waved happily when they saw me, and I waved back. As my parents returned to their conversation, I couldn't help but notice a pained look cross my mother's face.

My eyes were drawn to the other two figures, near my parents but slightly removed.

A frail young boy with long tousled blonde hair chased a mound of bouncing black fur around. The boy stumbled, and a pang of panic rose inside of me. He hit the ground hard but looked unfazed; he was actually laughing.

I watched as the fur ball pounced on top of him and began nuzzling into him. The boy's laughs redoubled.

The young child turned away from the dog, and I finally got a good look at him.

A cold recognition flooded my body as I realized who the boy was. He was much younger than the last time I saw him too.

"Tommy," I breathed.

It had been so long since I'd said his name.

Every time I tried, my voice would fail me, and I'd give up.

As I said his name this time, the dams that so often held those emotions at bay cracked, and with them, so did I.

I sank to my knees in front of the window, tears streaming down my face. My body was racked with pain. Low mournful sobs issued from my chest as I gazed out on the innocent visage of my long-dead baby brother.

A sudden conviction came over me. This was my chance to say all the things I'd left unsaid. To tell him how much I loved him, how much I missed him.

I pulled myself up and began desperately searching for the lock on the window so I could open it. What I'd do if I got it open was beyond me. Maybe shout all those things to Tommy, maybe jump out of the train.

The latter option seemed more likely; I was that desperate to be reunited with my family again.

To my dismay, there was no lock on the window. It looked as though it was explicitly made not to be opened.

I banged on the window, shouting for Tommy, hoping to get his attention. He just kept playing with Tara, the family dog, blissfully unaware.

I redoubled my efforts, slamming my shoulder into the window with all my might, hoping to smash through it. It held firm.

Sagging to my knees, I resigned to watching through tear-clogged eyes.

My parents joined my brother, and he listened politely as they explained something to him. Dad pointed directly at me.

Tommy turned around excitedly, a big smile raising his cherub cheeks.

I felt myself smiling in return. Tommy was about to say something, his lips forming the beginning of a word.

Then, the train was enveloped in blackness.

There were a few moments of confusion, but they were swept aside by rage when I realized what had happened.

We were in a tunnel. My family was back in that beautiful field as I was swept away on a train I didn't remember boarding.

"No! No, goddamn you! No!"

A burning fury filled me.

I lashed out at the window, punching it with all my might, over and over again. There was no pain, which some part of me found interesting, but the inferno in my stomach put any thoughts to rest before reason could take hold.

A glass of water was on a nightstand next to my small grey cot. I stomped over to it and hurled it against the far wall, it bounced off harmlessly and tumbled to the floor. No water spilled out, but it was empty now, nonetheless.

I punched the walls, threw the pillows, and even started hitting myself.

It felt like an eternity before the rage died down but die down it did. The anger was replaced by a feeling I knew intimately: all-encompassing misery.

I'm not sure how long I laid on that cot.

At some point, the tears stopped coming.

I didn't want them to; crying was a symptom of the pain. If there were tears, there was a physical reminder. I knew I was hurting because it was written across my cheeks and down my neck.

Tears didn't bother me. What came after did.

The hollowness. That deep everlasting emptiness. When I stopped feeling, that's what scared me.

As I lay in my cot, I couldn't help but ponder why I knew these feelings so well.

When I first woke up, I knew the base information about myself but nothing else.

As I checked back in, I realized I remembered far more than I had initially.

Growing up in New Jersey. Graduating high school. All the friends I'd made. Tommy getting sick.

Another pang of grief welled up inside me at the thought of it.

Tommy dying.

Then mom and dad.

I wanted to follow them but was too weak to do it. Always too weak.

The aftermath. Stowing away on trains. Drifting from city to city.

Getting caught.

Going to jail. Meeting Eric. Getting out.

The partying. All the drugs.

I dug deeper but found I'd reached bedrock. The memories became blurry and unfamiliar.

Just then, the cabin took on an ominous purple hue.

I glanced out the window and saw that we’d made it through the tunnel and into open air.

I crossed to the window tentatively. My last encounter looking out that portal had stung me, and I was afraid of what I'd see this time.

Where the window left me weeping in wonder, I was now brought to tears in horror. The field we were passing was a stark contrast to the one my family was dancing and playing on.

There was no grass, just dried-out weeds, and rocks that would leave the soles of the most calloused feet bloody. The sky looked like red wine had spilled across a tar field. It roiled menacingly and offered no light, no comfort, no happiness.

Though the scene weighed heavy on me, it wasn't the oppressive landscape that brought tears to my eyes. It was the visages of its inhabitants.

They were bent over double as if bearing some unimaginable weight, lying on the brutal rocks weeping and even staring vacantly at the passing train. The looks of anguish on their faces were so potent I recoiled and wanted to look away.

But I didn't. I couldn't.

Something told me I needed to see this; to look away would be a disservice to those fateful souls on the other side of the glass. What had they done to end up in this place?

My eyes were pulled to one person in the field as if they were magnetized to him.

He was on his knees with his back to me and his head tilted to the sky. Something about the silhouette tickled the recesses of my memory. Still, it wasn't until the figure turned around that the memory snapped firmly into place.

I tried desperately to peel my eyes from the window when it did. I pushed with all my might, tried to close my eyes, and tried to turn my head. Nothing worked.

Scalding tears poured down my face as the figure unfolded himself from his crouched position. He shambled forward, every step racking his face with a fresh spasm of pain.

We locked eyes. I could tell neither of us wanted to. The veins bulging from his neck told of a similar struggle to my own; neither of us could look away.

More features resolved as he inched ever close. He looked different, and all of it for the worse. His body was marred by burns and sores, and one leg looked like it wasn't working correctly, lending him a limp that had me wishing he would just lay down.

Worst of all were his eyes. They were blank, hollow-looking things. Bloodshot and dry, the eyelids looked as though they were pulled permanently back, like no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't close them.

I had seen Eric in some awful states, but this was different. He looked broken.

Even at his worst, there was still a smoldering fire behind his eyes that said he'd conquer the world. Now they were vacant.

At some point, he stopped coming towards the train and started moving parallel to it, keeping pace with my car.

The rational part of me dimly realized how impossible that was, but another more profound part realized it made all the sense in the world.

Eric was moving along next to my train car at a dying pace. I could tell he wouldn't be able to keep up forever, and so could he.

He was saying something. Bolstering the last of his strength to mouth something to me. A plea for help, maybe.

I couldn't make out the words at first. Eric must've seen the confusion on my face because he redoubled his efforts.

The rattle of the train, combined with his tilted gate, made reading his lips an impossible task. He seemed to realize this at the exact moment I did. Slowing his pace, he mustered up one last effort.

I rooted myself to the ground and gripped the window, staring at his lips as though they'd reveal the answer to all life's problems.

Two words. That was all Eric could muster.

Two words, but they conveyed more than any song, poem, or novel ever could.

"I'm sorry."

Memories flooded my mind. All of them.

Falling deeper into addiction.

Living on Eric's couch.

Going to that party down the shore.

Eric and I drinking and smoking way too much, even by our standards. Asking Eric if he was okay to drive home. Giving him the keys.

Headlights.

The grinding din of metal hitting metal.

The world turning upside down.

A torrent of emotion washed over me. The floor enveloped me as I sagged down, too weak to weather the storm.

My body and my brain couldn't process what was happening as everything clicked into place.

I dragged myself back over to the cot and curled into a fetal position against the wall.

It felt as though I was feeling every emotion at once, but at the same time, I was too numb to care.

Sadness bled into relief. Anger shifted into merriment and back into rage.

None of it made sense, but it didn't matter. Certainly not anymore.

I stayed curled in that ball for a long time.

Was this all I'd know now? An empty soul in an empty room.

I thought of my family, wishing desperately to be dancing alongside them in those lush fields. Making Tommy laugh his snorting giggle, wrestling with my dad, singing with my mom.

Part of me even yearned to be in Eric's situation. As horrible as it looked, at least there was something. Suffering was awful, but compared to an eternity of nothingness, there was at least pain to keep your mind off the memories.

The rhythmic rocking of the train car started to lull me to sleep.

I drifted in and out of consciousness for a while. Every time I woke back up, I'd see the reflection of some new scene out of my window.

I didn't dare look out it. I may have been a fool, but I was smart enough to know that if something burned you twice, odds were high it'd burn you again.

An indeterminant amount of time passed with me staring at the ceiling. I began to dread that this bare room would be where I'd spend the rest of my days.

Then the door slid open.

I was so buried in apathy that I almost didn't look up. The impatient sound of a man clearing his throat coaxed me from my stupor.

I glanced up at the door. There was a man framed in it, standing just outside my cabin.

His icy blue eyes bore into me; the kind of stare that tells you keeping secrets would be ill-advised. A voluminous, well-kept beard framed his wisened face. He wore brown slacks and a loose-fitting beige shirt covering a portly belly.

I unfurled myself from the bed and swung my legs over the side to sit up while I looked at him.

We stayed like that for a while, quietly studying each other, until he broke the silence. His heavy baritone was at once soothing and intimidating.

"I take it you've come to understand your predicament."

It wasn't a question. Perhaps, the weight of this understanding left a visible mark on anyone afflicted by it.

I nodded dumbly.

"Good. Do you have any questions for me?"

Questions. I hadn't even thought they would be allowed. I pondered that for a moment. What do you ask the person who knows mankind's deepest curiosities?

"Who got it right?" I asked.

His heavy white eyebrows furrowed at that, "I'm sorry?"

"Who got it right? Which religion? I mean . . . I always scoffed at religion and the idea of an afterlife. But, seeing I'm here, it feels like it's time to reevaluate those skepticisms."

There was a pregnant pause, and I worried I had pushed too far.

To my surprise, the old man snorted a laugh and rolled his eyes.

He took a few steps into my room and crossed to the wall opposite me. A chair appeared in the space where once there was nothing. As he sat down, the old man let out a sigh of many years of achy joints.

"The simple answer is, most of them got it partially right, but none got it all right."

"Sounds like the human condition."

The man tilted his head at that, seemingly examining me through a new lens.

"Perhaps you are further along than the Judges realized."

"The Judges?" I asked.

"The beings that decide what souls go where. We say judges because it is far easier for human brains to wrap their minds around the concept."

"So, I assume it's not called Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory then."

The corner of his mouth lifted, showing pronounced smile lines.

"Call them what you like. We have heard every name for the Planes, and we find it is easiest to stick to what you know."

"This is it then? Spend the rest of my days in this train car, either suffering while I watch my loved ones or watching my loved ones suffer?"

"Ah, you don't have it all worked out then."

I raised my eyebrow in confusion but didn't say anything.

"You will not be here forever. Nor will Eric. Think of this as an extended learning experience. This train car serves as an intermediary for you to discover where it was you went wrong in life."

"Went wrong? I was a victim of circumstance. I mean, I made some bad decisions, but I never hurt anyone."

The man's once soft features hardened, "You may not have hurt anyone, but you certainly never helped anyone either. Especially not in the later years. Being not bad is not enough to Ascend; you have to go out of your way to be good."

"Ascend?"

"Souls at the end of their lives, deemed worthy by the Judges, Ascend to the next plane of existence. Those deemed not worthy either get sent here or to what you'd consider Hell. That's where your friend Eric is; it's where you're punished for everything you'd done wrong in your past life. Once the Judges think you have learned your lesson, all your memories are wiped, and you get sent back to the Material Plane. The process keeps repeating until you finally ascend."

"How does any of what I'm supposed to learn stick if my memories get wiped?"

"Some memories are deeper than the human brain can account for."

"How many times have you seen my soul? And what part of my soul is Will or vice-versa?"

The old man cracked a coy smile, "Answers reserved only for the Ascendant, Will. Gives you something to strive for."

"And my family? They've ascended?"

He nodded solemnly, "Good people that met a terrible demise far too soon, and they would have done much good in the world. They are reunited now where they will wait for you on the next plane."

I sank into a contemplative silence. The man sat there respectfully for a while, ensuring I had no more questions. Eventually, though, he got up, giving vent to another great groan.

He crossed to me and laid a gentle hand on my shoulder, "I know it may be painful, but do your best to keep looking out that window. Life’s greatest lessons are taught through the hardest challenges, and there is much to be gleaned from observing those who lived life right and those who lived life wrong."

With that, he turned and stepped out of my cabin.

As he stepped through the door, his body became indistinct and hazy before disappearing altogether.

I watched the door for a while, turning over everything I'd learned.

I knew I should be shocked, having just received confirmation of an afterlife and reincarnation in the same conversation.

Instead, a feeling I hadn't experienced since I was very young took hold. A feeling of purpose. A conviction to absorb as much as possible to ensure my next lifetime was fulfilling enough to reunite me with my family.

The stool was still at the far wall, I crossed to it and scooped it up, plopping it down in front of the window.

I took a deep breath and sat down, steeling myself for the painful lessons to come.