Trainstopping

A distant shuddering movement tore him from a dreamless sleep in an instant. His eyelids felt heavy and it took them a while to defeat gravity, open fully and perceive his surroundings. He sensed something he couldn't place, a new feeling, indescribable and unfamiliar. Only after a while he noticed what it was –he felt nothing. He tried to remember the last moments before he must have fallen asleep, any indication to where he was, but there was simply nothingness. No memory of the past hours, and when he thought back further, no memory of his life, his present, his future or his dreams. He only knew that he was. He felt as if he was supposed to be looking for something, or someone.

After overcoming the shock of that realization, he decided there would be no use in lying around, trying to break through the walls he seemed to have built within his own mind, and took a look around. The first thing he noticed was that he was moving, judging from the rhythmical sound and vibration of the floor underneath his feet and hands. It was dark and only a shimmer allowed him to identify the walls around him. The wallpaper looked familiar and after a while he could make out the typical features of a living room. The old sofa in the corner gave him a feeling of comfort, he was not sure why. On the shelves of the opposing wall he noticed a number of books, some displaying philosophical titles, mostly about stoicism.

Suddenly, he was blinded by a bright light and heard steps approaching from behind him,

“Honey, what are you doing on the floor?”

He knew that voice, and although no corresponding name popped up in his mind, he was certain that this voice was home to him. He turned around and though still in a state of confusion and uncertainty, he looked at his love who – he was sure of that – had been with him for a lifetime.

“No need to worry, there´s nothing wrong, I was just about to drive to the shops to get some dinner, but you´ll be fine”.

Slowly single memories reappeared, sounds and pictures of their shared life, their wedding, their fights and reconciliations - and for now he chose to believe his one and only love. He ignored the rhythmic rumbling in the background and answered,

“What are you talking about, of course I´ll be okay, do you need help, my heart?”.

”No, It´s okay, I'm going to go alone, you need to stay here for a while, alright?”. Her begging eyes confused him, but he trusted her with all he was and since he had no reason not to, he agreed and let her go with a “I love you”.

She turned around and left through the front door that he hadn’t even noticed existed until now. He got up from the wooden floor he was still sitting on and looked around again in a room that he was certain was theirs and yet had no memory of owning. The walls were covered in framed quotes of poets that had shared their influence on the world centuries ago. Next to the door one picture didn’t seem to match the others, it stood out. He read out loud the ornate letters on plain paper “It´s better to conquer grief than to deceive it“. Somewhere from the depths of his mind the name Seneca popped up, but he was uncertain what the meaning of that was. Could it be his name? He didn’t believe so. What an unusual quote to put up on your wall, he thought, just a second before he heard a loud crash behind the door through which his wife had just left.

He ran towards it and swung open the door, then stopped in confusion, as there was not the expected image of his front yard and street behind it. He slowly took the few steps down a little staircase and found himself in a carriage of a train where chaos seemed to be the leading force. The seats were mostly empty, but a great crowd of people had gathered in the front of the wagon. He approached the crowded area to see what was going on.

Quietly, between the shouting of passengers and the rumbling of the train he could hear a familiar voice he would recognize everywhere. It sounded weak and frightened and he made his way towards the direction he suspected it to be coming from. A man tried to stop him to ask for his ticket but he pushed him aside. Breaking through parts of the upset crowd he saw her lying there, on the floor, with her hand pressed to her forehead. He approached her carefully and asked with a shaking voice, “My love, are you okay?”. She looked at him with big eyes, those eyes that let him forget the world around him every time he got lost in them. A piece of memory escaped the concealed part of his mind. The first time her eyes captured his. Eyes that seemed to keep heaven inside them. Gentle but radient, as if sunrays were escaping through the little windows to her soul and thunderstorms were raging in their depth. That’s how he had described it to his friend the first time he had seen her. Now the only description he could think of was grey, all intensity washed away.

“The train suddenly hit the brakes and I must have fallen towards the door in front” she told him. There was no time to question the sudden change in scenery, his mind barely even noticed it anymore and had lost all sense of reality. All he knew was that here and now, he was there to save her. She tried to calm him and told him that it was just a scratch on her forehead, that there was no need to worry, she would be fine, but deep down he had a feeling she wouldn’t be. He felt an anger rising inside him, and it seemed as if all the times he´d been angry before came back to him, building up inside like a thunderstorm. He wanted to find the person responsible for this. So, without further rational thought, he put his arm around her, helped her up and took her by the hand while walking through the door into the next carriage, in hope of finding the driver and someone to help in the front wagon.

Again, it was not what he had expected to find. Although at the same time he had no specific expectation of what to find here. His hand firmly wrapped around hers, he found himself in an empty room. There were no windows on the walls and he caught himself briefly thinking of it as an odd thing, since he had not seen such thing before. Then again, he'd never woken up with only bits and pieces of memory before and no sense of self.

The room was filled with a glimmering light shining from the opposite side of the long hall. It could have been described neither as light nor as darkness, and he knew no words to describe the feeling of this room. He was drawn to the other end, his legs taking over and setting one foot in front of the other. Seconds ago he had felt his wife´s hand securely in his, her tender fingers providing him with the support and comfort that he needed, an encouraging squeeze, but now when he looked around, she was gone. He felt weak suddenly, his body signalling him that there was no purpose in ever moving again. He wanted to go back and look for his love, but internally knew that only the end of this carriage would give him answers. Slowly he approached the source of light and found a being, no face, a voice that could be heard in his head but couldn’t be described as high or low, not loud but yet to be understood.

“What are you?” he asked, fearfully.

“I am what you seek” he heard the voice saying. “Everyone that looks for me has a different idea of what or who I am, sometimes there´s not even an idea, and yet I am here, on that train and most people pass me in their search for the truth, how they got here, how they get out of here”.

He could not find any sense in these words. “All I want is to find my wife and the person that hurt her”. But the anger he had felt so strongly before in every bone seemed to vanish and he only wanted an answer to his questions. “Where is she? I have to get her home! Can you please help me? I am scared that something might have happened to her. I feel alone”.

For a while, there was silence in his mind and he started to wonder what made him say all these things, but then the voice replied “There are many things that can help you in your further journey. But right now the only person that can move on is yourself. It is true, you are alone. She is not here with you”. It was not the answer he was hoping for and certainly did not feel like the answer he needed.

“Why are you saying this. I don’t deserve to be alone. What do I have to do to get her back?”. Deep down he knew she was not with him anymore, that she could not be and he had to walk this next part alone. Yet he tried to bargain “I would do anything to get her to be with me again, to make her whole again, I do not deserve this”.

“It is not a punishment you are receiving. This is just the way life goes. And it is beyond your powers, beyond anyone´s powers to change the course of life”. In a last wave of desperation he began “She does not deserve to be alone. This is not fair! I –“

“Where she is, there is no alone. Talking of fairness is a common thing for you humans. Nothing is fair to you as long as it is not in your favour. But fairness is a concept, an idea of existing that is nothing but human made, in a world in which it is not bearable to suffer through the amount of pain you were given without inventing a reason. Because humans have always searched for reason, for a deeper meaning, for a foundation they could structure their world on. So they invented gods and philosophies, all screaming the same. Give me reason. But if you truly look at the way the world works, fights for survival, generations before us that died and those to come, you will clearly see: life is not fair. There is no greater reason. And death is a part of life, neither fair nor unfair, it only is.”

He remembered parts of a quote he studied a long time ago. “But death and life, pain and pleasure – all these things, equally happen to good men and bad, being things which make us neither better nor worse. Therefore they are neither good nor evil“ he whispered to himself.

The voice answered “Some very few of you have gotten close to understanding that”.

He hesitated, “How do I get off this train then?”

“You have to make it all the way to the front, only then you have a chance to make it stop. Go past me through to the next carriage and see what awaits you”.

Thus he made his way towards the grimly lit door and pushed down the handle. When he carefully took a step forward, the ground felt as if giving in and devouring him. It seemed that gravity was stronger in this room, and he could barely move. All of the sudden, a mountain of memories found its way back and out of the stone cage he had built in his head. As if crushed by heavy, gruesome rocks, he fell, unable to breathe, unable to do anything. His wife's laughter, her face turned towards him, a love in her eyes that made him feel as if he was about to conquer the world. Then the lights approaching from behind her, the glass breaking and her smile fading away. Everything after this happened quickly, in the blink of an eye, and yet felt like an eternity for him. Thousands of little glass fragments made their way through the air, the car’s metal creaking and deforming to an extent that made her unable to move. The ringing in his ears after an unimaginable jolt shook his whole body. Then, the image that presented itself when he opened his eyes. Her inanimate delicate body, her hand that had just grabbed his arm in search of gaining hold, now weakly resting on his skin.

There hadn’t been a chance to say goodbye, not 'I love you', not anything. Wherever she was now, he could not be there and the fact seemed to devour him and pull him deeper and deeper into the feeling of helplessness and impotence.

No preparation. It was not fair – but what was fair in this world. When do we ever get the chance to be prepared for what is about to happen? That is the thing about the future, he thought. There are no hints of it in the present, that is what makes it the futures, and there are endless words that never had the chance to be told floating around in this infinite universe, at no time delivered to their rightful recipient. We live this entire life knowing that everything around us is only temporary – and yet for us it seems permanent, because we ourselves are temporary. Death is not evil.

He managed to make his way to the end of the carriage and opened the door towards the next one.

There it was again, his living room, only this time he recognized it immediately and was aware of what was missing. He did not know how much time had passed since the accident. It must have been a while, in which he had been barely living. As if waking up from a dream, he could feel the train coming to a stop and a distant ringing slowly made its way into his brain. The telephone. He looked around and found it lying on the table next to his sofa on a book about the five stages of grief. The times where he had sat on that sofa waiting for it to ring, for news, any news, bad or good. The doctor on the other side of the line sounded careful and hesitant, so he cut in,

“She died, didn´t she?” he asked.

“I'm sorry, we could not keep her in that state forever, today she decided to leave”.

He slowly let the phone sink down and felt he had to leave this room. When he exited the front door it felt as if he hadn’t been outside for years. The fresh air stroking his skin brought back a spark of life to his body and once again, he was painfully aware of the border between life and death that, for now, was insurmountable.

Yet, he felt strangely at peace, knowing that his love had finally overcome the fight and, who knew, maybe even triumphed, who's to judge? The sky was dipped into various colours and encouraged him to recognize the beauty the world still had to offer to him. He looked up and knew that through the clouds and rays of the dying sun his love said farewell to him a final time.

“I'll see you soon” he whispered, “in a lifetime or a blink of the universe