Nearly There

I awoke.

I opened my eyes. But I did not get the sensation of surfacing from murky, dream-filled waters as usual. I was alert and animated from the first moment, my eyes frantically scanning my surroundings while my mind hurried to make sense of what they saw.

I was in a green velvet seat on a train. I could feel the muffled rhythm of the wheels drumming over the tracks as it sped onward.

On to where?

A sudden panic seized me. I could not remember boarding this train, or where I had boarded it from, or any of the nice, grounding facts that make our existence comfortable. I was not in control. I was aimless and powerless.

I shook myself free of the panic’s grip. I would exit the train at the next stop, find out where I was, and plan a sensible course of action. For now, all that could be done was wait.

I relaxed into my seat and re-examined the state of affairs. The compartment I was seated in was nearly full. Across the carpeted aisle, an old woman read a book. Reclining on her shoulder was a sleeping young woman, breathing softly and jerking right and left to the rhythm of the train.

I realized the rest of the compartment’s occupants were doing the same, swaying from side to side with every bump and skid over the tracks. I don’t know why the sight discomfited me. Maybe it was because I always tensed on trains, resisting the erratic jerks and trying to maintain my composure. Maybe because I was unused to seeing such a relaxed group of travellers. I rolled my shoulders and let myself sink into the plush seat, following their example.

Soon an attendant brought a cart of refreshments by, her heels tapping a crisp, efficient pace on the floor.

“Tea, sir? We have Earl Grey, Lavender -”

“Earl Grey, please. One sugar, no milk.”

She placed the steaming cup on my tray and made for the next aisle.

“Excuse me, but how long until the next stop?”

Silence. The old woman across the aisle looked sharply up from her book at me. The attendant smiled.

“About two hours, though there may be a short delay.”

“Thanks.”

The attendant moved off. I sipped my tea. The old woman returned to her book with pursed lips, as if there was a bitter taste in her mouth.

The next two hours passed leisurely by. A few rows forward two passengers idly solved a Sudoku, murmuring to each other in hushed tones. Another played a game of Patience, his hands deftly flicking the cards here and there. After a while the thick, drowsy atmosphere of the compartment took hold of me, and I slept. When I awoke, it felt as though I had been asleep a long time - hours at least.

Attendants occasionally brought food and drink, all tantalizing smells and rich tastes.

“Excuse me,” I asked one. “How long until we arrive?”

“Three or four hours, I should say,” she answered with a smile. Her teeth gleamed.

She moved off, leaving me confused. I leaned across the aisle and addressed the young lady, who must have woken while I slept.

“Did I miss the last stop?”

“No.” She looked at me with large, deep eyes. “We’ve been delayed a few hours.”

Eyes like pools, I thought absently.

And with a jolt I realized why. Tears as fine and fat as pearls pooled on her lower eyelid and hung from her lashes.

“Is everything alright, Miss?

“Yes. I’m a bit tired.”

She held my gaze, but I found her scrutiny uncomfortable. Like the whole compartment, her sadness seemed heavy and sleepy.

I looked the other way, out the window. The train was meandering past dusty fields and scrubby underbrush. It was a high-speed train, the kind that carries you dreamlike across the country so fast that you don’t have time to appreciate the landscapes you’re slicing through before they’re gone. The only thing that stayed the same was the cloudless, azure sky, and the blazing sun.

I became bored. Laughter and gentle chatter sometimes cut through the syrup-thick silence of the compartment, but it always died quickly. Its echoes were devoured by the velvet seats and carpets as fast as they began. It made me inexplicably uneasy.

Why is no one worried? Why is everyone pretending it’s normal for a train to be so late?

I drifted in and out of a restless sleep. I dreamt I was in a train compartment identical to the real one in which I sat, except for one detail. The dream-train was pulling into a station. The platform outside was bedecked in flowers and banners of welcome. As I stood up to exit the train, I found myself back in my seat, and realized it had been a dream.

A while later, an announcement was made in a language I didn’t understand. A man in the aisle behind me sighed when it was over.

“What did it say?” I asked him. “Did you understand?”

“Yes. It said we’re running a few minutes late.”

“I see.”

Hours passed, though they seemed like days. I will not relate what they contained, for there is nothing to tell. I slept, ate, shared trivial conversations with the other passengers, played cards with a deck borrowed from the man who played Patience.

I slept. I ate.

I was comfortable - a comfortable train making its way through a pleasing countryside.

The attendants hurried by with great purpose.

We’ll be a few minutes late. There’s a short delay ahead. We’re running a bit behind schedule. We’ll have to skip over the next stop - the platform’s under construction.

There were new passengers too, though I never noticed them arriving, or could fathom how they did. They asked the same questions I did, and more.

When is the next stop? Where is the next stop?

The stops had odd names, I always noted. Things like ‘Pulvisia’ or ‘Aeternus.’ Maybe we were in Italy. Maybe not. Strange names for places I had never heard of.

I didn’t ask the attendants questions anymore. Whenever I heard the drum of their heels I started counting down from 100.

…87. 86. 85…

By the time I got to zero they were gone. I tried not to look out the window. It taunted me.

I want to strip the sun from the hills. I want to dig these verdant forests up by the roots and chew the soil beneath into dust. I want to reach out the window and catch a dove as it soars under the endless, glassy sky and take its wings off.

The world behind my window was a torment.

Days passed. Maybe it only seemed that way, because I never noticed night falling. No shadow of the coming dusk ever touched the sky. But I think I am right in saying that days passed. Maybe even weeks.

The dense silence of the train infected me, as well. I hardly spoke, and I never had enough energy to make a real fuss, though I longed to demand that we stop, that they let me off.

I became aware - in a slow, passive way - that I was going mad.

At some point, I awoke from sleep (which was always unsatisfying, for it was full of nothing but countless dreams of the train) and registered a fact:

I needed to escape.

Escape!

A desperate joy filled me at the thought. But the joy slipped away into the far reaches of my mind, where I could not retrieve it.

Escape was impossible; even in sleep I could not escape.

There will be no end to this.

The train was comfortable, I said to myself. Good food, good company…

But I had already stood. I was already walking to the end of the compartment, holding the knife from the last delicious, torturous meal.

In the space between compartments, there was a door with a large window. I did not stop. I did not hesitate.

I brought the knife forwards against the glass with all the strength I could summon.

It scuffed the glass, nothing more. I tried again, in vain. I cursed, and threw the knife away.

A sudden thought occurred to me, and I clung to it in my desperation.

There was a knob on the door, and there appeared to be no lock. This time, I hesitated. Such an easy escape - such an easy end to my suffering was surely not possible.

But desperation does not pay heed to reason.

Outside the window, the train was crossing a ravine on a viaduct. On each side of the train there was a drop of hundreds of feet down to the lush river bed.

I walked forward, and in the same motion I clutched the doorknob with clammy fingers and turned.

The door easily swung open. The world outside was nothing but blurred colors, deafening wind, and the blinding, radiant sun.

A fierce joy flooded me. I stepped forward as calmly as if I was alighting onto a platform. I fell, the world crystallized into perfect focus, and then the valley rushed up to meet me.

“Tea, sir? We have Earl Grey, Lavender -”

I leapt to my feet and looked around wildly. Velvety green seats. The rhythm of a train over tracks.

“What’s happening? I don’t understand - I don’t -” I heard the panic in my voice, the beginning of a sob. All the confusion I had tried to contain since that fateful waking rose up to choke me. I pushed it down.

“Dear, dear. Please sit down, sir, you’re disturbing the other passengers. I’ll come back once you’ve calmed down.”

She moved off, and I was left looking with despair into the eyes of the young woman across the aisle. Silent tears were falling in rivulets down her face and onto her lap. I noticed that the old woman, too, was shaking with suppressed grief. The man in the aisle behind had buried his face in his hands, and the man who had played Patience was wracked with agonized sobs.

The compartment, so still, so muffled and calm, was all at once a nest of anguish, of misery, of people tortured to insanity by the perpetual comfort of the ceaseless train. It always had been, I suppose.

I understood now where I was, though not where I had come from. It did not matter. I sat back down.

All that could be done was wait.

I wait.