Southbound Express

I went to sleep on what I assumed was my normal train home.

I woke up in the cabin of the train wet, sticky and terrified.

I was cramped in the dark and I couldn’t see anything. I tried to raise my arm so I could wipe out the globs of gunk that accumulated in the corners of my eyes.

I was hoping it would allow me to see better, but when I bent my elbow it got sucked into a wet, squishy wall.

I screamed and tried to pull my elbow out of the wall, but it was stuck.

I tried again this time stomping my foot on the floor of my cabin which was as sticky as a movie theater floor on a Saturday night during a heatwave in July.

The force of my stomping spun my entire cabin car upside down like an amusement park ride. My head slammed against the wall.

At least I thought it was a wall.

But the crack of light that was now piercing the once pitch black of the train car corrected me.

It took me a while to discern that my head hit the automatic doors of my train’s cabin car and it caused the doors to come ajar slightly.

Was I, in fact, in an accident? Or God forbid was I the cause? Just as I began pondering the question the walls of my cabin car quickly closed in around me then trembled.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t tall enough to kick what was now the top of the train car. My only other choice was to bang my head on the automatic doors until they opened wide enough to push my body through.

And did I really want to do that?

The train car’s cabin doors were only slightly ajar which meant it was necessary to either widely gesture in front of them as to break the signal of the electronic eye so they would automatically open…

…or bang on them.

Exhausted, I took a deep breath to regain my thoughts and my composure. I rationalized something happened to the train I was on and there was an accident. And for whatever reason, I remembered or recalled that I needed to remain calm.

And that need was good in theory and what not, but as the wet, sticky and squishy walls of the train car started trembling again I fully extended my limbs to keep the walls from collapsing on top of me.

But just as my forearms started to weaken and I could feel my elbows beginning to succumb to their waning strength, the trembling stopped.

So I stopped and pondered. Surely the foundation of my cabin has been damaged and wasn’t able to support my weight much longer, so I had to escape.

But my only means of escape requires me to force myself out through a cramped, dangerous uncomfortable and possibly torturous tunnel?

Literally banging my head through a wall.

The floor, now ceiling, of the train car was cracking from the pressure of the tunnels walls and water began pouring from the cracks.

Then the once thin crack of light flooded the cabin and I felt the cold metal clamp my head.

Shit. I thought to myself.

I’m fuckin human again!

I swear on everything that is Holy or Not I wanted to come back as a deer. But noooo, someone’s got jokes. And it’s a bad joke at that!

Not only am I reincarnating as a filthy human, but it’s the same dumb ass that went through a dry birth the first time I was born.

And to think I ran to catch the train cuz I wanted to get back home.