328 Spiritual Inertia
For Saturday, November 23, Day 328 of the 2024 Story-a-Day Challenge.
I was standing in a resting train, which is ironic, as I was on-board for my final rest. I was alone in the railroad car, untethered to life, no wrist strap from which to secure myself. Since "you can't take it with you," I wasn't holding on to anything.
Destination? Who knew?
When the train began to move, only my feet moved with it, but my body fell behind. I stumbled backward. My conscience, in contrast, had no feet and it hit the wall.
Or did the wall hit my conscience?
Or were my conscience and the train back wall meant to be conjoined, and some ethereal physics simply finalized the prophecy?
This required considerable thought.
The air (æther?) in the train moves when the engine engages, moving back a little as it sloshes to the back, although I know that that very same air, eventually, will accelerate.
All this time I thought my conscience worked in a vacuum. I thought it was private, intangible, immoveable. Now I know that all my parts, including my spiritual parts, are affected by momentum, defying inertia. Defying the very air I seem to still be breathing.
And defying relativity:
I see others on other trains through their car windows—seemingly faster or backwards, and my own motion is bemusing.
I don't know where I'm heading, but somehow I bought the ticket.
The æther will stabilize at some point, and my spirit will drift back as it expands between the wall and me.
But it takes time for the air to keep up, accrue on its springboard, and snap me back to the middle of the car where my feet are still firmly anchored. But the æther—my very breathlessness—won't accelerate it as much as the train. The external forces of good and evil are at work. There are track switches ahead as the rail splits toward different destinations.
This railroad is the track of my life, with stops—selected in the past—driving the rail switches now.
The train comes to a stop. My spirit drifts back, forward, in a reverse of how I had started. Do I get off here? Is looks like here and now, as before, I have a choice.
________
AUTHOR'S NOTES:
For Saturday, November 23, Day 328 of the 2024 Story-a-Day Challenge.
366 WORDS (without A/N)
38 DAYS TO GO! THE STORIES ROLL ON IN THIS VOCAL CHALLENGE, 366 SWITCHES A DAY.
There are currently three Vocal riders in this 2024 Story-a-Day Challenge:
• L.C. (Reading RR) Schäfer
• Rachel (Short Line RR) Deeming
• Gerard (B&O RR) DiLeo
About the Creator
Gerard DiLeo
Retired, not tired. Hippocampus, behave!
Make me rich! https://www.amazon.com/Gerard-DiLeo/e/B00JE6LL2W/
My substrack at https://substack.com/@drdileo
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Comments (5)
Quite the visual and thought inducing story. Wonderful imagery.
I find your story truly original, due to the theme and the scenario, it struck me a lot. "This railroad is the track of my life, with stops—selected in the past—driving the rail switches now", I find it a very deep and intense phrase
Oooo, this was veryyyyy thought provoking! Loved your story!
"Now I know that all my parts, including my spiritual parts, are affected by momentum, defying inertia. Defying the very air I seem to still be breathing." I believe it, considering some days it feels like I left my mind in the other room.
You've all done a Grand (Funk Railroad?) job on this story-a-day adventure! Can't say I've read every one, but I've enjoyed peeking in as often as I can. The expression of drives, Nietzsche called this "spiritual inertia". How do we ferret out the drive, in the service of which we do so much unconsciously, and bend it through an act of will toward a conscious and conscientious direction? Nietzsche cared little for the conscientious part of it, I know, but that doesn't make him wrong about the fundamental nature of the process. For my part, growing awareness seeks a more conscientious approach, and as much for practical as sentimental reasons. Well-wrought, Gerard!