Only one direction

Only one direction.

Fate on rails

I later, found that it must have been about 8am on Saturday when I gradually became aware that I existed. My first impression was that this is very pleasant, relaxing. I was warm and comfortable lulled by gentle rocking and a quiet humming sound. Then I opened my eyes and that caused a change, to alarm and puzzlement. I was in a train, a railway train that was travelling at quite a high speed over a featureless landscape. There was just the gentle humming sound, no clatter. I was alone in a long open carriage, my alarm increased when I could not recall how I came to be here, or where I was going, not even who I was. What was I doing in an empty carriage? I forced the panic and alarm to one side and started to think logically, if I was on a train, I would have a ticket, and this might show departure and destination locations. I searched my pockets, nothing I was dressed casually in jeans, tee shirt and trainers, no socks, no hat, no wristwatch. I had no bags or luggage of any sort. I got up to try and find other passengers, I was going to risk being thought an idiot by asking where we were all going. Problem was there were no other passengers in the carriage and when I walk to the ends of it, I found the doors to other carriages locked, I peered through rather grimy windows into the adjoining carriages but could not see any people at all. I found a door in the side of the carriage but that also was firmly locked, this may be due to safety systems in a speeding train. I found all the windows sealed shut. I tried to judge how fast we were going but the land we were passing through was flat and totally without features of any sort, no reference points to judge speed. It was also all grey, totally uniform one colour I sat to try and hold my increasing anxiety at bay, by remembering personal details but nothing, I could not remember thing. I had my normal physical sensors Smell sight sound touch; I was aware time was passing I tried counting to 20 and reciting the alphabet, these all Ok so I had cognitive capacity but absolutely no memory.

I took some deep breaths and forced rationality to overcome the panic that was starting to take over. I felt my own pulse at my right wrist. Odd that even with no recall of events, I could still know how to count and take a pulse. These need some sort of memory and whatever sort it was, this still functioned, it was the other sort, the everyday knowing who you are and where you are going, that did not function. To try and gain some semblance of self-control I undid and removed one trainer and then put it back on and tied the laces. Again, these actions require memory of how to do them and again this type of memory worked. All I had in the pockets of my jeans were a handkerchief, which was clean, and a pocketknife, which was sharp. One with two blades but not a multitude of gadgets. I looked at my own body and knew it was male, I seemed to be younger than mid age but not a child, I had muscular arms and legs with a lean torso; yet more sorts of memory that still worked. How could I know what I was, without knowing who I was? I talked out loud to myself, that also still functioned, I could remember a language to speak. All this time the train continued crossing the same dreary flat grey landscape, as far as I could tell our speed never varied at all.

I was alone in this carriage but had no way of knowing if I was the only passenger, or the only living thing, on the train. I pulled the emergency cord, but nothing happened, nothing changed in the slightest. We sped on , the landscape never changed; no towns, no stations, no distant hills, no sign of life at all. Was I dead and in some sort of hell? Was I destined to ride the train to nowhere for eternity? It was strange that my mind still functioned, but my memories did not. Without memory how was it possible to make judgments about being in hell? I kept asking myself such questions but never found an answer. Time passed but I did not become thirsty or hungry I realised this and mentally placed myself in some sort of life hiatus, or a closed time loop. The scenery was so monotonous I could not tell if I was seeing the same mile or two over and over again or if I really was traveling at speed over a vast landscape that never changed for hundreds of miles. Although I had no memory of it, some past training must have had built some automatic responses to adversity into my very being. I did not rave and curse, I did not run about the carriage trying to smash seats and windows, I dimly recognised these actions as possible ones but also was aware they would be futile. I made a couple of the seats into a camp bed and stretched out to see if sleep would pass the time in a less stressful way.

I woke with a crash; I was in a hospital bed and my sudden eruption back into life had thrown several bits of medical gear into a heap beside my bed. The noise brought nurses running all gasped at the sight of me sitting up and breathing without the tubes and apparatus I had dislodged. My memory of who and what I was, returned instantly but I still remembered every detail of the train and my journey on it. I am a university lecturer and I specialise in getting students to think very hard about Fate and about Free will. On the Friday I had been in a discussion with a theology lecturer while we waited for a train. I did not remember collapsing but now I was in hospital with a memory of how bitterly bleak, unfettered fate could be. It is inevitable that we die, and “Fate” may be fulfilled by that death, but free will can make memories, and those memories are what make the journey so very much more enjoyable. It is free will that lets us travel by many roads to our inevitable death while fate alone will place us on the never changing railroad.