Where the Tracks End

That was some time you had last night, the last day of college and the celebration was something else, but now you are laying on a bunk, rocking gently back and forth as if you were on a train. You jump up and hit your head on the bunk above you and fall back holding your hand over your forehead cursing as you slowly roll out of the bunk. Standing, you realize that you are indeed on a speeding train as you watch the scenery flash by you in the darkness. Then turning you notice a young girl sleeping in the bunk above you and as you go to touch her she vanishes as your hand hits the empty bunk. Jumping back you end up falling back onto the bench on the other side as sweat appears on your forehead and you try to figure out what the hell just happened. Searching through your pockets you try and find a ticket to answer what is going on only to find nothing, drawing you further into this mystery you had awoken to.

The train seemed to pick up speed as it sped down the tracks like there was no one guiding it and as the darkness began to fade with the morning sun you could see mountains in the distance, but where were you? Where were you going? With no ticket and vanishing girls around you, you had no clue and just sat there trying to figure out what to do next when you looked up and the young girl was sitting on her bunk humming away. “Excuse me,” you called out. “Do you know where we are going?” But the young girl just sat there humming away and as you reached to grab her foot she vanished again. This wasn’t helping at all as you stood up and paced back and forth and stopped in front of the door of the carriage. Should I leave? You think to yourself as you reach for the handle, or can you, as you began to turn the handle ever so slowly hearing the click as the door releases itself from the lock and slides open before you.

Looking back the little girl is still sitting and humming when you went to step out only to grab onto the door frame cause the floor was missing. Well, you can’t say it was totally missing, there were footprints, just hovering there and you decide to try your luck and step on one of the footprints. As your foot touches it you close your eyes excepting to fall to your demise, but it holds as you step out onto another footprint. The little girl is now giggling at you, as you figured out the puzzle and jumps down from her bunk. Glancing down at the passing tracks below, it is all a blur as you notice that the train was rocking a little bit more as the speed picks up and you didn’t want to be standing on these floating footsteps. Slowly and carefully you make your way as the little girl skips by you and vanishes into the next carriage as you finally make it to the door.

Peering through the glass in the door you notice a gathering of some sorts going on and as you look behind, the footprints that you were following were vanishing. Frantically you grab for the handle, only for your hand to pass through it, again and again, and in a last-second leaping, you jump right through the door landing at the foot of another passenger. You scurry away quickly noticing that they were like the little girl and slowly get to your feet. You notice the little girl among the crowd but none of them seem to notice you as you pass by them, sometimes vanishing if you got too close and reappearing once you passed by. This doesn’t seem to bother you as much now as they seem to be friendly as you watch the little girl vanish through the wall into another carriage.

As you open the door the familiar footprints appear once again as your heart goes up in your throat for they are much further apart than the last time and the walls seem wider apart so you couldn’t hold on to them. The little girl is waiting for you at the end of the corridor as you take your first leap, landing on the footprint and holding your balance on one foot as you prepare for your second leap as you land you were going to jump again when you looked into one of the cabins and seen a familiar face, not one of happiness but of sadness and despair. You do not know her personally, but you knew she was constantly bullied through school yet did nothing about it. Looking closely you could see the tears on her cheek as she looked at a photo in her hands. It was you and you were about to fall when she caught you and smiled at you and you were about to hug her and she vanished and you realized you were at the end of the cart. You wonder if she always had a crush on you, yet you let her get bullied for years. How could I do that? How could I not care about what happens to other people for so many years?

The train made a sudden jolt and you slipped off the footprint, grabbing it as you fall expecting to hit the tracks below, but nothing. It was as if you were being pulled by some kind of matter or was it just water. As you scramble to get back up on the tiny footprint a hand reaches out to help you. You look up and it was the girl that was in the carriage, as you try to grab her hand, but to no avail, it just keeps passing through every time you reach for her. Knowing that you will not be able to get her help you braced your foot and got into a position of a swimmer getting ready to start a backstroke race and pushed off as hard as you could towards the little girl standing next to the next carriage, slamming hard against the wall. It seemed as if the train shook violently as you scrambled towards the next door before huddling in a ball in the corner, wondering why this was happening to you. The little girl stood in front of you and watched you rock back and forth with the train's motion when she reached down and tapped you on the shoulder, causing you to jump back to your feet and stare at her. She then motioned you to follow her once again and you nodded as she led you into the next carriage. The engine was getting louder so you assumed you were getting close to the front of the train but it kept going on and on and each carriage that you pass by seemed like there was someone you knew in it or thought you knew. The floor became easier to walk on as more footprints join the ones that were there, big and small the little girl pointed to another carriage, and as you slowly crept up to it, peered in and noticed you were back at your cabin once again. But how? Once again confusion set in and you went in and lid down on the bunk once again as the little girl climbed back to the bunk above.

The train keeps on speeding ahead out of control, you wouldn’t know how to slow it down anyway cause you wouldn’t know how to reach it. Is this how it’s going to be from now on? Speeding out of control on a train that you have no idea how you got on in the first place and you didn’t have a ticket. What was in that last cocktail we had? Am I really here? You ask yourself this before you fall back into a restless slumber not knowing where the tracks end.