The Meaning of Pop Tarts

You wake up on a train. You have no ticket and no memory of how you got there. In the few moments you have of consciousness, you can tell the train shows no signs of slowing down.

Your body is in pain. Your body smells of elderberries. Your body is a wonderland. Then, suddenly, you realize that your body can’t be a wonderland, because then it would be a lyric of a cheesy pop song. Your throat is sore, your head is pounding, and you have itchy underwear. You wish that Mary Poppins would fetch you immediately to take you up to the sky so you could fly away from your problems like Peter Pan did with his new-age love interest, Wendy. You want your Mommy, but a cool bath will suffice. You begin to dream about Monty Python.

Suddenly, you realize the reason why you’re there. You are on a quest, and the quest is simple: go find the meaning of life. You've tried yoga and crochet in the past, but have heard that this train will take you there instead. You want the meaning of life to include a beautiful beach with you and a loved one on it, like in those photographs of a beautiful beach with you and a loved one on it back home in those nice Royal Doulton picture frames. Or, you want it to include the end of the world that takes place in a sheep slaughtering factory. Either way, you want to get to use your body like a Jackson Pollock canvas. And, you want it all in one snap-together kit.

You search the train cabin you are in only to discover that all the wood is made of teak, and you hate teak. Suddenly, you have an insatiable desire for pop tarts, the very food that spawned you to get up every morning in your life back home. In a moment of inspiration, you leave the cabin you’re in. You want some pop tarts. Or, some damn answers about how you got there, and they better not be those cheesy conspiracy stories like about how Walt Disney made up Mickey Mouse. As you enter the train isle, you hear intense screaming coming from another cabin at the end of the car – which suddenly stops – but you try not to notice. Instead, you notice an open window with the desert outside whizzing by. You are in a foreign country. You then notice you have sand in your shorts, and badly want to move your underwear about to allow the excess sand loose, but you hesitate out of embarrassment. You then realize that no one else is there, and besides, even if there were others there, they wouldn’t really know of the customs back in your homeland. So, you proceed.

You walk a few steps in the isle toward the front of the train when you see another empty cabin. Then you see another empty cabin. Then another. By using your math degree you acquired as a prodigy child, you quickly deduce that all the cabins on the train are empty. You also quickly deduce that this is a runaway train that is never going back, going the wrong way on a one-way track. Suddenly, you realize that all the cabins on the train can’t be empty as you recently heard screaming coming from the end of the car. Regretfully, your math degree now feels unjustified. Until you realize that your thoughts are quickly becoming the lyrics to cheesy pop songs, which only quantifiable formulae can fix.

Suddenly, you realize that there is someone behind you. Then, just as suddenly, you realize that the book The Celestine Prophecy has the word “suddenly” in every second paragraph. You turn around. That someone else is me. You don't know me, or perhaps you do, but it is of no concern to you. You want the bloody meaning of life. And some pop tarts. Maybe a bath, too.

Just before you open your mouth to ask what the hell I am doing there, I open my mouth and say: “Let me tell you what the hell I am doing here. I know… what it is you quest. The meaning of life.” You stop dead in your tracks. Even though the floor is tiled. Can this be happening? You know the meaning of life has something to do with an abattoir, or Mickey Mouse, but you're not sure how. You allow me to proceed. I continue: “The answer to the meaning of life is—”

Suddenly, I cough. Then, suddenly, I look at you. You suddenly get pissed off and ask me to spit it out. I do – suddenly – and I spit out a large nectarine fruit pit. I point to it.

“That is the meaning of life?” you ask. Not able to speak, as the nectarine pit’s sharp edges have serrated the tender folds of my now bloody throat, I smile. You get angry, and with that stupid smile on my face, you search my bags for money. Or something to hit me with. In my bags you find only a choose-your-own-adventure book and a can of rainbow colored spray paint. You open the book and discover that all the pages are blank. Then you flip past a page with a photograph tucked in it that falls out. You pick up the photograph, which is quite beautiful — you note to yourself — of yourself. Can this be happening? You look closer: it is the photograph of a beautiful beach with you and a loved one on it, just like the one in that nice Royal Doulton picture frame back home. Suddenly, your mathematical degree becomes justified again as you deduce it actually is the exact photograph that was in the nice Royal Doulton picture frame back home, because it has a little crease mark in the corner from when you dropped the photograph last year and it has some of your handwriting in pen on the back. The scribbled ink reads: “me and a loved one, in love.”

You are in shock and awe. Can this be happening?

Suddenly, I'm healed, and I say: “yes, this can be happening.”

You say, “But how did you get—”

“The meaning of your life?” I say. “To be in—”

“No, the… wait!” you interrupt. “That is the meaning of life? But… but that is as cheesy as those conspiracy stories like about how Walt Disney made up Mickey Mouse!” You start screaming madly until your throat is sore. I simply smile a bloody smile. You then hear intense screaming coming from a cabin at the front of the train car, when it suddenly stops. Then, the entire train screeches to a halt. Suddenly. You lurch forward and fall into an empty cabin, and your screaming intensifies until you hit your head on the edge of a teak wood seat and are suddenly knocked out cold.

You wake up on a train. You have no ticket and no memory of how you got there. In the few moments you have of consciousness, you can tell the train shows no signs of slowing down.