Derailed

The loud shriek of a horn pierced my brain and rattled me awake. I was having such an amazing dream when this happened, but as I awoke, the memory of that dream completely eluded me. Frustrated about this and coming to, a second loud shriek went straight to my nervous system like a bolt of lightning, engaging me as I groggily sat up like a dysfunctional marionette.

I was trying to understand my current situation when suddenly, a violent sway pushed me to my left and I face planted into a cold glass pane, giving me a complete shock to the system with the taste of metallic seeping into my mouth while also chipping my two front teeth. As my face was against the window, I realized I was travelling on a train in the middle of the country. The train was also going unusually fast. I felt extremely hungover and couldn't for the life of me figure out what I was doing on this train, not to mention, where I was headed.

"Where the fuck am I?", I mumbled to myself.

I looked around and saw that I was in a modernized sleeper cabin with two bunk beds attached to the wall. I was on the bottom, and reluctantly stood up to see if someone lay above me. Oddly enough, there was a grey and black alley cat just sitting on the bed, staring at me with a mild curiosity. It had to belong to one of the passengers, but I didn't see anybody else in the room. I then began to hear some commotion outside of my cabin, as if there were people running past my door in a frantic hurry, but I was still too confused to investigate it. The cat just looked at me and didn't move while I sat back down on the bottom bunk, trying to think.

The last I remembered; I had gone to dinner by myself at the local sports bar down the street from my apartment. I typically frequented there at least a few times a week to relax and unwind after leaving my mundane tele sales job. I also lived in San Francisco, so the country setting I saw outside told me that I had somehow ended up hundreds of miles away. I only remember having a few beers, but for some reason, I couldn't even remember paying my bill. Did I go on some drunken bender? This wasn't like me. I quickly reached into my denim pockets and found them empty! There was no train ticket, no wallet, and no cell phone!

Panic set in and my grogginess had completely melted away at this point. I was on high alert now. I frantically looked all around the cabin for my wallet and cell phone, pulling the drawers out and looking under both beds. I scoured the room, turning it upside down but found absolutely nothing at all. It was completely empty. Most bizarre was the fact that the cat was now missing. Was I hallucinating? My attention turned to the cabin door, and I quickly stood up, sliding it open with a quick jerk.

As it opened, a women shot past me and kept on running down the main hallway into the vestibule. The commotion that had been filtered by my door had now been exposed to me and I instantly sensed the urgency in the air by the way multiple voices echoed in both directions. At this point, I slowly stuck my head out of the cabin I was in and looked in both directions.

I caught someone’s attention quickly.

“Hey, you!”, shouted a chiseled, well-built middle-aged man with a southern drawl. He had a handlebar mustache and a Nascar trucker hat covering his greyish brown hair. For some odd reason, I thought I recognized him, but couldn’t place where I had met him before.

“You’re a big guy. What the hell you doin’ hidin’ in there? We need you?”

Before I could even answer, he hastily gestured me to follow him. I didn’t question this and just went along. I Looked in both directions as I tried to keep up with him and noticed the pace of the train had increased even more. He jogged a bit, and so did I as we went through the vestibule into the next box car.

There were at least ten people all piled in the back, franticly yelling and several men pounding their fists on the closed Boxcar, as they were desperately trying to open it. The man I was following, whose name I did not know gestured me to get closer and join in. As I raced down the box car hallway, I noticed a young woman clutching tightly to her baby and crying, as well as three other middle-aged women yelling towards the direction I was headed.

“Break the Goddamn door open”! yelled one woman as she clutched what looked to be a crucifix in her hand, tears streaming down her face.

“Open the fucking Door!”, yelled one of the men who was hitting the door so hard that his hands were bleeding. His blood being splattered all over the plexiglass.

“Please, don’t do this”! yelped a teenage girl, hugging what I assumed was her mom as they both rocked back and forth, cradling each other.

I now came to realize that the box car they were so desperately trying to get into was where the conductor was. As we both approached the group of people, all eyes were on me.

“It’s no use!”, the door is not budging, said the guy that was pounding on the door. Without the frantic attitude, bloody hands, and sweat that was seeping out of him profusely, you would think of him as a mild mannered, middle-aged businessman.

“We think this asshole is on a suicide mission”, said the man who brought me into this room.

I looked into the box car, seeing that the conductor was in there, alive and ignoring everyone. He completely locked himself in and the train was increasing speed.

“Who are you?” asked the businessman, tears coming down his face, but exuding a calm compassion now.

“I…I’m Ryan”, I said.

“… and frankly, I don’t even know how the hell I ended up here. I just woke up about five minutes ago”.

“Ryan, I’m Chuck, and this Bob”, pointing to the man who escorted me to where I was now standing.

“We are…”

We don’t have time for a God Damn meet and greet, Chuck”, interrupted the large, tattooed man who stood behind Chuck. He had to have been at least six foot six, four hundred pounds.

“Shut up, Pat!” yelled Bob.

Pat quietly fumed but complied and just turned his attention back to the conductor.

“Anyway, Ryan…”, Chuck continued.

As he took a deep breath, he paused, as did everyone else in the cabin. This man was obviously respected and seemed to be the natural leader in this situation.

“We are running out of options, Ryan, but we need to figure out how we can get this guy to stop this train, or somehow disconnect his box car from us”, said Chuck, rather calmly considering the circumstances.

Another young teenage girl ran up to Chuck and tightly hugged him, and his sorrowful eyes looked into mine

“Okay”, I said, which was really all that came out of me.

The gravity of the situation hadn’t really dawned on me until this moment now. I was in a situation where death could happen at any moment and there wasn’t time to think.

“What do you want me to do?”, I asked.

Bob just smiled and said, “Are you up for climbing on the roof with me and trying to bust in that motherfucker?

“Are you serious?”

“As a heart attack”, replied Bob, a stone cold gaze in those eyes.

At that moment, my stomach completely dropped. As the train had been picking up pace, we noticed that there was a bend coming up, and with the speed of this train, we had to move, fast.

My whole life had been extremely mundane with procrastination always conquering me and my goals. It was always tomorrow. My dreams to be a filmmaker, would happen tomorrow. My horrible sales job was just something for me to get by since I would work on my ideas…tomorrow. But now, I realized that tomorrow would never come because now was do or die, and I had been wasting my life away. For the first time, I realized that I had missed so many opportunities and all the things I had planned, that I had procrastinated, would most likely never happen now.

I was completely in the present moment and something stirred in me to survive.

“Let’s do it…” I replied

Bob just looked at me, and then opened a window, trying to climb onto the roof. As I watched him carefully try and climb out, I noticed that the bend was approaching, and we were going too fast. We did not have enough time to make it to the cabin, but I was determined to live, regardless. I had never felt so much adrenaline in my bones. My focus, sharper that ever, would allow me to do whatever I had to do to survive.

As soon as Bob tried to climb out the window, the unspeakable happened. He was sucked out immediately. We tried to grip him, but it was of no use.

The bend came closer and closer and I could feel the train about to derail.

Why!?

Why had I wasted so much time not actually living but playing it safe. I had been suicidal and drank my problems away, but now, I was desperate to stay alive and I saw my life flashing before me. Everyone started screaming, but I was not going to give up. I started pounding the doors as well. I had so much life to live. So much to do, and now it was all about to end!

The train had now derailed, and everything started happening in slow motion. The box car I was in was getting crushed like tin foil and my life was now flashing before my eyes. So much wasted time! All began to fade as the screams of the passengers and the chaos around me was was caving in. If only, I had actually lived! I'd do anything to start over and go after life! Now, it was all over. Then,

complete blackness…

I awoke in a comfortable resting chair of some sort and all my memories started pouring in. I couldn't see anything now, but I remembered that I had agreed to participate in a virtual reality simulator that would supposedly help me with my lack of motivation in life. The company was called Insight, Inc., a mysterious tech start up that touted it's technology as being so advanced, that it made VR headsets seem like ancient artifacts. I wasn't sure about the hype but figured I would try it anyway. There was a money back guarantee for the experience. At forty-three, I was just existing in life and had been for the past twenty five years.

They had given me a sedative of some sort prior to "take off", that would help eliminate the memory of me coming to this place so I could have a more interactive experience and be "in the moment". I thought it was all B.S., but now I realized this was quite true considering the experience I just had.

I now remembered that I had special contact lenses put in my eyes without the need for a headset or hardware. The black screen I had been staring at now had a caption slowly moving across the screen that read: "Your train journey has come to an end, but a new journey begins. Thank you for allowing Insight to derail your negative thought patterns".

"Catchy.", I thought to myself.

"Welcome back, Ryan!", a jovial and familiar female voice said.

I felt a gentle touch on my arm.

"Okay, mister. Just relax and we will get these contact lenses removed.

I felt what seemed like tiny suction cups remove the lenses, one by one.

My eyes could see again and I saw Valentina, a brilliant and beautiful young medical student who had graduated Stanford and was blazing a new path in the technology sector. She is one of the founders of Insight, Inc and she was the one who had administered the sedative before I left this reality, which was only about an hour ago. She carefully placed the contacts in what look like a white ear buds container.

"How are you feeling?", she said with a warm and genuinely curious smile.

"That was intense!" I responded, still a little shaken.

"Yep! That's the usual response, alright", she said giddily.

"So at this point, we are going have you walk into my office for an exit interview and go over your results", she said.

"My results?", I said curiously.

She just nodded with a smile.

I slowly got up, still a little disoriented, and followed her into an office across the hallway.

Once in the hallway, I saw there was some minor interior construction work being done and many people moving about. This new start up had an exciting energy about it and it seemed like Insight, Inc. was getting ready to take over the world. I was told that I was the forty fifth client, hence the enormous discount. The only reason I new about this company was because I was doing Uber part time and happened to give an executive of Insight a ride home from the airport. His name was Chuck. We had a good conversation about motivation and he then invited me to partake in a trial run of their groundbreaking technology, handing me his card. I thought about it, agreed and ended up here.

I was directed to sit in a chair in the office and Valentina closed the door, which filtered out the construction noise. She then sat down, and proceeded to ask me questions about how I was feeling and what the experience really did for me. These were standard questions to set me up on an integration plan for the next ninety days, per Valentina. I was to outline my goals within a week and update them at the ninety day mark to make sure I was on track and motivated.

Then, another familiar face popped in. It was Bob, from the train, Nascar hat and all. He was one of the facilitators in the room before I went under.

"Sorry to interrupt Val, but"...started Bob with a very serious tone, same southern drawl.

His attention then quickly turned to me.

"Oh hey there Ryan! How are ya?", he asked with a completely changed demeanor, while patting me on the shoulder. I could sense he was hiding his nervousness, but I couldn't understand why.

"I'm good. I was just..." and suddenly lost my train of thought.

"He was just telling me about his goals and how he plans on crushing it in the next three months.", she said as if I were a little child, also trying to hide some type of nervousness.

I just nodded.

"Well hey! If that train trip don't do the trick, you can try our plane crash simulation! That'll put a fire up your ass!", he said with a laugh.

Valentina then laughed as well and I just nodded with a smile.

"Anyway, I'll just put this here so you can review it when you are free.", he said, trying to hide the folders contents while placing it under some books on a table in the corner. I got the impression that those were legal documents, but it was only from the very quick glance I had at them.

"Alright, Ryan. We look forward to seeing what you do over the next several months. Any questions?", she asked with a fabricated smile.

"Not at the moment.", I said calmly and still groggily.

I felt the energy in the room had shifted and I could sense she was rushing me out the door for more urgent matters, but we shook hands and I left her office with her card in hand for that future follow up.

As I left the room I was in, I noticed her running towards another office with the folder in hand.

I disregarded that and left the building. I had about thirty minutes until the next train ride to San Francisco and it was a fifteen minute walk to the train station. I was told not to drive since there was a possibility of being drowsy after the "trip".

During that walk, I noticed everyone I walked past was just in their own world, most of them avoiding any kind of eye contact, or glued to their phones. Everyone seemed zombified and I was wondering if this recent experience would help me find purpose, or if I would just continue existing in this cold and lonely world. Something ignited in me during my "trip", but I was beginning to feel like the old me again already.

Once I got to the station, I waited patiently for the train to arrive. Everyone there was locked into their phones, but I hadn't even touched mine. It was actually really nice to take a break from my phone and be present. I couldn't remember the last time I had done this. It felt free.

Once the train arrived on the platform, I stepped into it and found a seat at a window in the back. The train slowly started to move and I found myself thinking about these goals I had over the next ninety days.

"Was I going to actually stick with these goals and overcome my procrastination?", I thought to myself.

I then noticed the train going a little faster than usual when suddenly, a black and grey alley cat jumped on my lap, digging its claws into my legs. It just stared at me. I felt my heart rate jump up as I looked back at the cat.

"Could it be?", I thought to myself.