Bound for Glory

I felt movement. A slight lurching. My body tensed, like when you feel the first drop of rain and break out in goosebumps. Then, there was a quickening choomp… choomp… choomp. I felt my muscles reviving, stirring. A sharp hiss. My eyelids fluttered open. I had been dreaming about what must have been a vacation. I had been at the beach, the sun’s rays warming my body as the rough sand stuck to me. I had to squint because of the brightness, but I didn’t mind. The waves undulated closer and then farther away, beckoning.

I could still be dreaming. The images in front of me still seemed blurry, as if I was looking through glasses that were too strong for my eyes. There was a bench in front of me: red, leather maybe, with a high back. Golden poles ran along next to it, forward, away from me. I moved my head to the left, and the bright sun pouring through a window made me wince. I moved my hand to block it. I had a watch on, gold, large. I looked at the time but couldn’t see the face in the sun.

My arm was covered by a jacket sleeve of gray linen. I looked down and saw matching trousers, a cream button-down underneath my jacket, a dark blue tie hanging loosely around my collar. Brown shoes. I was sitting on a red bench too, the carpet underneath a patterned paisley pink and green. I looked to my right and found more benches, more golden poles running in both directions.

I tried to think of how I had somehow fallen asleep on the train to work. I closed my eyes and shook my head to try and clear it. A thought popped in:

“You don’t work anymore, Jack. Left just this morning.” My eyes opened.

Another sharp hiss as the train gained speed.

Someone was sitting across the aisle from me. I could hear the rustling of their newspaper. I turned, my vision starting to clear from the force of my shaking. The newspaper stared back at me.

“What’s your name?” the newspaper asked.

“Jack.” I answered, my voice sticking a bit in my throat.

“Jack what?”

I opened my mouth, but no sound came.

The corner of the paper folded down and I saw a gentleman’s hat, glasses, and one bright blue eye looking at me.

“Jack what?” he repeated.

I paused before answering, the confusion seeping further into me.

“I don’t know, sir.”

“Hmmm.”

The newspaper straightened, blocking him from view again. But I could hear him mumbling under his breath, “Jack…Jack…Jack.”

I looked out the window again, the sun now high enough for me to see outside. The edges of a city were passing by, bricks being replaced by tall green grass. Clouds peppered the blue sky and the shadow of the train raced with us over the fields we passed.

I was oddly comfortable sitting on the bench, even though I had no idea how I had come to be on this train. The ride was smooth, light jostling rocking the passengers. I saw there were four others in the area near me: the newspaper man, a small boy of maybe twelve, a woman in a dress, and another suited man. This man’s attire looked much pricier than mine, his lapels adorned with golden beads, a silk handkerchief in his breast pocket. Small pinstripes ran the length of his dark blue fitted suit. He tipped his head when he saw me looking, but the smile with which he accompanied it was slightly sour.

I turned again to the newspaper, its front page telling of food shortages, a nation gripped in turmoil, a kidnapper found and charged. I leaned forward and whispered, not wanting to be overheard by the other passengers.

“Where is this train going?”

The newspaper didn’t move, but a slender hand rose from the top and pointed forward. I followed it and saw a golden bordered station sign hanging above the door to the compartment.

NEXT STATION: FRONT GATES

My brow furrowed. Where was Front Gates Station? I had never heard of it. I looked around at the people again. The woman was fussing with her skirts, smoothing the fabric of the light pink dress. The man was sitting contently looking out his window. The boy had his hands in his lap, holding a small slip of paper, his ticket.

“Ticket,” I said under my breath. I patted my front pockets, my pants, searched the insides of my suit – nothing.

The train continued on.

The newspaper rustled. “No ticket?” it asked. The man’s eye appeared to the side of the paper again, looking at me.

“I can’t seem to find one.”

I heard a small scoff behind me and saw the man in his suit changing sitting positions. I felt heat rising in my cheeks. I sunk a bit on my bench.

“Interesting.” The blue eye said before disappearing behind the paper again. “So, what do you do for a living, Jack?”

“I work for the courthouse.”

“Courthouse…courthouse.”

My face reddened a little deeper. “Well, I used to work at the courthouse. I…left yesterday.”

“Left?” the blue eye was back.

“I was let go yesterday.”

There was another scoff behind me from the man in the suit.

“How unfortunate,” the blue eye said and disappeared behind the paper.

I remembered back to the exchange at the courthouse when I had arrived for work. Actually, it wasn’t an exchange at all: I had been refused entry. The man had said budget cuts. I had pleaded, begged. I had needed that job; I couldn’t afford to not work. It wasn’t that I had lived above my means. I had tried to scrape for every penny. But even stable work – well, it wasn’t even stable anymore – hadn’t been enough. I had cried on the front steps. The man’s cold eyes had shown no sympathy.

I couldn’t decide if I was angry or just resigned about the whole thing. There had been too many emotions flooding into me. I rubbed my eyes, and small gritty grains of sand tumbled from my brows through my fingers.

“I did go to the beach.”

“Sorry?” The newspaper rustled.

“I was at the beach.” I said, “I thought I had dreamt it.”

“Beach?”

“Nevermind.”

I waved the topic away. Another sharp hiss, and the train gained speed.

I thought the sun was moving across the sky rather quickly. We could only have been traveling for less than an hour, but the sun was already starting to peek through the windows on the other side of the train. And as far as I could tell, we hadn’t gone any direction besides straight. How long had I been on this train? We hadn’t reached the next station yet. Hadn’t even slowed down. Did everyone else know where we were going?

There was a soft ding and I looked up at the station sign to see it change to read “TICKETS PLEASE”

My body tightened, squeezing my throat closed as the other passengers reached for their tickets. The suited man happily extracted a slip of paper from his inside right pocket, the woman in pink reaching into the small coin purse she carried to get her slip. The small boy still held his in his hands, cradling it between his fingers. The newspaper didn’t move.

There was a click as the door to the compartment opened slowly. But there was not a ticket man standing in its frame. There wasn’t a person at all. There was a… a something. It wasn’t solid, more of a gas, like a fog was drifting into the compartment. But it still had a defined shape; human, I guess, but it was darker and shadowy, like drops of ink in water. It somehow carried the setright ticket machine, a wide, brown leather cord wrapping around where you might have found a head and shoulders. But it carried nothing else.

I didn’t remember how to move. The shape of a shadowed man started to move towards all of us sitting on our benches. It arrived at the young boy. A dark arm extended towards the child, who placed his ticket onto its end, where a human hand might be. The ticket seemed to melt into the shadow, and the shape moved forward towards me.

My breathing had quickened. My confusion at the creature entering the compartment had turned to fear. My head started pounding. My heartbeat echoed in my ears, but faintly underneath the cacophony, I heard the newspaper rustle.

“Save that one for last, please. He still needs a little time.”

The shape was moving away from me, away from me!, towards the suited man who proudly presented his ticket to the arm. But the ticket didn’t melt into the arm as the one from the boy had done. It burst into flames.

The woman gave a small squeak.

“This train doesn’t carry cigar smokers,” the newspaper said.

Dark arms reached quickly towards the suited man who began to protest and try to twist away.

“Hey, what’s the meaning of this?” He called, slowly being pushed between the golden poles to the front door.

“This train doesn’t carry cigar smokers.” The newspaper said again, louder this time.

The man’s eyes widened. He turned as he was pushed past the small boy.

“You there!” he called out. “Say something to him, will ya? Don’t just sit there, you stupid brat!”

The boy made no effort to move. He just sat with his head down, looking at the floor.

The man was pushed forcefully down the aisle, reaching the front door.

“Wait! Wait! I can pay you!” he called, his words brimming with hysteria.

The newspaper spoke again. “This train doesn’t carry gamblers.”

The man was pushed through the door and his voice died off. The woman and I watched in a stunned silence, my mouth hanging slightly ajar. I slowly turned towards the newspaper.

“Where have they taken him?”

The newspaper spoke, “Mr. Walter Ness, 52, native of Brooklyn, New York, fatally shot in the back this past Saturday.”

I stared at the paper. “What?”

Its corner folded down, revealing once again the bright blue eye. “He leaves behind a family of three, who he abandoned in order to keep up his smoking and drinking addictions. He has also been stealing from his company, racking up hundreds of thousands in debt which he had no intention of paying off.” He paused, and folded the paper down into his lap, “Of course, the paper doesn’t mention the drinking, smoking, and debt.”

He was a young man, maybe mid-thirties, with dark hair peeking out from under his fedora. His olive skin was only visible at his face and neck, his own dark suit tightly buttoned to the collar, his hands covered in white gloves. His blue eyes shone.

The woman in pink began to cry, her whimpers quickly carrying to both myself and the newspaper man. He turned towards her.

“I’m afraid you can’t stay either. This train doesn’t carry…how can I put it…high-stepping women.”

The train compartment door opened again, and the shadowy figure made its way to the woman who was crying into her hands. It extended its arm, where she placed her ticket, it too bursting into flames. She then stood and was escorted out.

“Miss Annabelle Whipple, 28, poisoned by a bitter acquaintance.”

“Will she be okay?”

He turned to me. “Do not mistake her tears for regret; she lived without any. Her tears were for the failure of her deceptions, as there were many.”

The man glanced at the folded paper. “But you – Jack, worked in the courthouse, who has no ticket – are not in this paper. So, tell me, how did you end up on this train?”

With a light toss, the paper landed onto my lap, the open section facing towards me.

“Obituaries,” I read aloud, looking at the man. “Everyone on this train is dead? I’m…dead?”

“It would seem that way.”

I looked at the boy, still sitting peacefully on his bench, his head now looking out the window at the sun, beginning to set.

The man waved his hand. “Don’t worry about him. He will be okay. He had a ticket, after all.”

I looked at the man again, his face serious but not unkind.

My sentence rolled off my tongue dryly, both a question and statement. “I died today.”

“Yes you did, Jack.”

“How?”

“You said you went to the beach.”

I thought back to that dream, now apparently my past. The warm sun, the coarse sand, my hand moving to block the brightness and seeing…a suit. The same one I still had on. I had sat for a while on the beach after being let go from the courthouse, after realizing I had nothing.

And then I stood and walked towards the water.

My eyes became blurry. “I drowned.”

“Yes,” the man said quietly.

I remembered how cold the water was, the saltiness on my lips. It stung my eyes as I sank below the waves. How still it seemed under them, quiet.

“I killed myself.”

Tears were streaming down my face, my head lolling forward into my hands, my back shaking with sobs.

I remembered the darkness start to creep in around me in the water, the fear coming with it. I looked up towards the surface. The panic setting in. I’m too deep. The struggle to move, the voiceless cries. And then, nothing.

The shadow had returned to the compartment, its mass standing next to me. I looked up at it, terrified.

“Jack.” The man said.

I turned and looked at him.

“What was the last thing you did before it went black?” He was leaning towards me slightly, his eyes searching mine.

“I…I…screamed for help.”

The man nodded. “And I heard you.”

He reached for my wrist, placing a small slip of paper into my hand.

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***If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.