To Where

She felt as if her body was rocking. The bed, the whole apartment, it couldn't really be moving. She quickly jumped out of her sleep. It was still dark. She stretched her feet out. She expected to feel her shag rug, but instead, she felt a cold metal floor. And her mattress felt thin. It should have had a mattress cover. She sat for a moment, in a state of confusion. She breathed deeply, getting her composure.

She tried again. There definitely was not a rug beneath her feet, and the apartment was rocking. She reached her arms out and found a wall - a window. She pulled on a shade, which rose, bringing into her sight fields of wheat. And as impossible as it might seem she was on a train. She had slept in rooms like this before. It had been the cheapest way to get home from college.

Was she asleep reliving those trips in her mind? The ticket would say. She felt pretty sure that the train was heading to Boston. She would soon wake up lying in her downtown apartment. She looked for her red suitcase. She would never travel without that. It was not there. She scanned the room. No suitcase, no train ticket. Her phone and her computer were charging. Her wallet was there -with a wad of money. She never carried money. She checked the closet. There were clothes, but not her clothes.

She had worn shorts to bed. The shirt she had worn was not suitable to wear to explore. The shirt in the closet would have to do. She opened the door, stepping out into a narrow hall. She saw a sign -Dining Car- she headed in that direction. Thank god, she sighed, thank god the sign had been in English. The train threw her off her balance as she went from car to car. The air was warm but not hot. She hadn't even noticed that the air hadn't been on in her room. She was not on the way to Boston. This was not a dream of the past. She had never been on this train. Finally, she smelt food. Bacon, she smiled - too eager for the meal to worry about where or why she was here.

Three groups of people were in the dining car. She observed their clothing. None of them were wearing shorts, but their styles did not make her feel underdressed.

The waitress brought her a menu. American dollars, five dollars for a full meal. Something was not right. This meal should have been around twenty. Her mouth melted around the bacon and the hashbrowns. No grits, she was not in the south. Coffee and orange juice had been included with the meal. Nobody seemed to notice her. The tip was practically as much as the meal. She had been a waitress, she could not just leave a dollar tip. It was not that the service was exceptional, it was just her own personal hang-ups.

She cleaned up her room. She wondered where she was, and where she was going. She logged into her computer. The train had wifi. Her email had been disabled, and her Facebook account would not let her comment. Her stories were all on the computer. As were her photos. There was no way to contact anyone. The phone gave her no phone service, she was surprised its camera worked.

She felt lost, pulled from her routine existence. She felt she should be scared. There was no logical explanation for this. She looked out her window. The scenery was flying by. Still fields, no people. Usually, she would have been snapping photos in a dream of joy. The land outside her window was stunning.

Usually, when she was confused she called her friends. But today she was on her own. And yet she felt surprisingly calm. She wondered if this was the end of her life or a new beginning. She lay down and slept.

When she awoke, the scenery had changed. All she could see from her window was a blur of color. The train seemed to be rocking out of control. It must have increased it's speed. All of a sudden she did not want to be alone in her room. The only place she was sure there were people was the dining car.

The path there was scary. She kept expecting to be thrown from the train. But it was as if an invisible force was keeping her there. She ran into the dining car. The same waitress was there. In fact, the same customers who had been there on her first trip were still there. She assumed that they were drinking. Alcoholics often spend the train ride in the bar car. She couldn't help but think it was strange. She definitely did not want an alcoholic drink. The train was shaking so badly she already felt sick. She ordered a ginger ale. Her favorite remedy for an upset stomach. She also ordered the hamburger special. She was too busy watching the other passengers to taste the flatness of her food. They did not seem normal to her, but she was not sure why.

For some reason, she did not feel totally comfortable in the dining car. She felt as if she was being paranoid, but she wanted to get out of there. She ordered food for a night's snack and reentered the obstacle course back to her room.

Sitting in her room, she wanted to cry. She did not know where to look for peace. She wanted a conversation or even a movie, she wanted to get away from her current reality. A reality that she could not comprehend.

Somehow she had internet but the selection was abnormal. No Facebook, no form of conversation between her and anyone in the outside world. And yet she could answer questions in surveys. She quickly got lost in the politics of the US. She sometimes learned more from the surveys than she did from the news. The redsox game was on too. She smiled what a great way to let out her frustrations. She spent the next two hours yelling at the computer, and by some miracle, the Red Sox even won. Food eaten, game over I fell asleep. Not even noticing that the train was gaining speed.

I awoke to a jolt. The train had stopped. Not at a train station, but at a large field with a warehouse in it. Passengers with no luggage patiently left the train and lined up in front of the warehouse. Nobody talked, they moved as if someone was controlling their mind. Something was not right. When I walked into my room my computer was beeping. The page was labeled the guardian. The guardian of what? It looked like it was counting how many people were getting off each car of the train. I wondered if the people in charge would notice that I was not getting off. I was not going to move like a robot into that warehouse. I held my breath till moments later the train restarted. I was too relieved to face the fact that I was still stuck on this train. My computer was still stuck to the guardian page, but it had a total, and it did not seem to notice that I was missing. I wondered if anybody in my regular life had noticed that I was missing. Wouldn't they start looking for me? There were no messages on my phone. Did everyone know what was going on but me?