A New Home

A blinding sense of light overcame Virgo as he opened his eyes in a foreign place. For the first time, he could feel every inch of his body as if someone was pushing him down, anchoring him to the bottom of the ocean. And yet, around him, he felt emptiness. A vast space. No matter how far he stretched his arms or extended his fingers, he felt as though he would never touch anything ever again. He longed for his home; grabbing his own arms, just to make sure he didn’t dissolve into the unimaginable abyss that enveloped him. Out of the light, shapes emerged and he became aware of a cacophony of sounds. As he took a breath, he realised at least one of those sounds had been coming from his own mouth. Above him, a patch of darkness caught his attention. The rich velvet sky soothed him. 9 spots twinkled above him, for the first time, Virgo felt beauty. The sounds around him eased, they were friendly and warm; he felt safe. He didn’t panic when something wrapped around him and a familiar throbbing echoed in his ears. He didn’t know where he was, or who he was, but he had found a boat in the middle of this ocean and the desire to sleep was too strong to fight.

***

Virgo wasn’t the only one on the train without a ticket, however he was the only one who didn’t know he was on a train. Or even what a train was. For a long time the train would be his whole world; but soon he would start to wonder, and later, to ask.

His mother would tell him how he had been born on the 200th day of the maiden journey of the Apollo Express, under the constellation of virgo, at 9pm. She would tell him of the brave men who had ventured to the moon before, when her grandmother had been just a child, and how like them, they were explorers and pioneers. She wouldn’t tell him that there had been no choice.

As Virgo grew, so did his questions.

"What was before the train?"

She wouldn’t tell him of the fires or the famine.

"How did we get here?"

She wouldn’t tell him what she’d had to do to get a ticket. Or who they had left behind.

"What’s outside?"

She wouldn’t tell him how she was terrified of the vacuum of space that could suck the air from their lungs in an instant.

"Are there other trains?"

She wouldn’t tell him about the trains before, that never made it past Mars; the train they had watched burst into flames and rain down onto already burning cities.

Virgo would read books about trains and ask why this train didn’t have steam, or tracks, or conductors. Why outside he could see stars and planets but not mountains and oceans. Why the skies in his books were blue and white, and not black. He would ask if he would ever climb a mountain or swim in the ocean.

His mother would smile and say, "of course". His father would scoop him up onto his knee as his mother’s eyes filled with tears and mouth pursed with all the things she couldn’t tell him. His father would tell him the mountains he would see were greater than anything they had known on earth, that the oceans would be full of life, and the skies would dance with more colours that he could ever imagine. As Virgo’s dreams filled with vibrant images of his new home, his parents would hold each other in silence knowing they would never see the world waiting for their son. For them, the train would never slow down.

***

When Virgo's face was thick with lines, and rarely left his carriage, when he couldn’t walk without his stick, and everyone who had been on the train on the day of his birth were only memories that flickered behind his eyes, then, no one on the train would have a ticket. A new generation would end the journey their parents and grandparents had started.

Virgo stepped out of the train and felt the brittleness of his bones and the weight of his body as if for the first time. He struggled to take a step forward. It didn’t look like it had in the books. The trees were taller, the ground was softer, the air was heavier, the space… there was space. If only he could, he thought, he would walk forever and never reach the edge. Suddenly he craved the old metal walls of the train, to sleep side by side with others, never more than an arm's length away from human touch. For the first time, Virgo felt alone. A hand reached up and clasped his own. A familiar voice whispered, “we’re home.”