The Train That Only Stops for Regret

No one buys a ticket for the train that stops for regret.

You find it when you are already tired of pretending you don’t have any.

I found it at a station that didn’t exist on any map, late at night, when the world felt quieter than usual. The sign above the platform flickered once and settled on a single word:

REGRET.

The train arrived without sound. No whistle. No warning. Just a slow exhale of steam, like it had been waiting for me longer than I realized.

Inside, the seats were nearly full.

Everyone carried something small and invisible. A woman held her hands together as if cradling a child who never came. A man stared at his phone, scrolling through messages he never sent. Across the aisle, a teenager clutched a notebook, its pages blank from fear instead of lack of ideas.

No one spoke. Regret doesn’t need introductions.

The train lurched forward, smooth and steady, moving through darkness that felt familiar. Outside the window, scenes flickered past—moments frozen in time. A door never knocked on. A goodbye swallowed. A chance dismissed because it felt inconvenient.

Each passenger saw something different.

Each passenger looked away at the same time.

At the first stop, the doors opened to a quiet street bathed in pale light. A sign read: THE WORDS YOU DIDN’T SAY.

The man with the phone stood. His hands shook as he stepped onto the platform. The doors closed behind him gently, like the train understood.

No one clapped. No one judged.

This wasn’t that kind of journey.

At the next stop—THE RISK YOU DIDN’T TAKE—the teenager rose, leaving the notebook on the seat. It stayed there, heavy with unwritten futures.

I wondered what the train would ask of me.

We slowed again. The sign outside my window made my chest tighten:

THE LIFE YOU KEPT POSTPONING.

The doors opened.

I didn’t move.

I thought of all the reasons I’d collected over the years—later, someday, when things calm down, when I’m ready. I thought of how convincing fear can sound when it uses logic as a disguise.

The conductor appeared beside me. I hadn’t noticed them before, but somehow I knew they had always been there.

“You can stay,” they said gently. “Many do.”

“What happens if I get off?” I asked.

The conductor smiled, not unkindly. “You carry less.”

I stepped onto the platform.

The air felt lighter, thinner, like the moment before rain breaks. The train doors closed behind me, and for a second, panic flared. What if I’d made a mistake?

Then the train began to move again, disappearing into the dark, carrying other regrets to their rightful stops.

The platform shifted.

It wasn’t empty.

It was open.

I didn’t suddenly become brave. I didn’t feel healed. But something loosened inside me—the tight grip of what if.

When I turned back, the station sign had changed. It no longer said regret.

It said NOW.

And for the first time, I understood something important:

The train doesn’t punish you for regret.

It delivers you to it—

so you don’t have to carry it forever.