Same Old Tracks

The jostling of a train can rouse the deepest sleeper and lull to sleep the most anxious window-watcher. Eyelids fluttering open and closed, feet tapping anxiously, pacing, kicking, waiting to be let off at the next stop. When in motion, the brain is sure to keep up with the body, so whether asleep or not, the mind will wander and flail. If a train must keep to its tracks, so must the mind keep to its body, or else the owner of both may be stripped of sanity, a spirit without a home.

Her eyes begin to flutter open after a good knock of her head against the doppled window. Without a thought, her hand climbs up to meet the scene of the impact and sweetly massages her scalp. With each circular motion of her fingers, her eyes widen. She scans the rough moving cabin. She's alone in here, but the luggage racks overhead are full of luggage. She reaches into her pockets, first her jacket, then her pants. Nothing. Not a wallet. Not a ticket. Not even a speck of dust or sand.

Out the window, the landscape is hard to make out. Rain runs down the double-paned glass, the condensation trapped between the panes creating even more obstruction. It's blue outside, but the sky is grey. Mountainous, maybe, the landscape cascading down below the tracks.

She settles back down into the familiar indent in the vinyl-upholstered bench. She sticks her hands in her pockets again to find still nothing. Once more, she rubs her head. Finally, she closes her eyes. Under her breath, and with many deep ones, she counts to twenty. Her eyes snap open and she looks around. Same empty train car, same obscured landscape.

She sighs, hoping the quick breath will encourage her and she stands up, but the sound of her breath is sad and empty and it takes her a few moments to move her feet. Like spilled beer on stadium concrete or rubbery floors on a humid day, her feet stick and slow on the immaculate carpet as she pushes herself to the cabin door. She slides it open with caution, but, maybe just to spite her, the door squeals and creaks, though it's drowned out by the wailing of the train down the tracks. She peers up and down the aisle. She sees no other passengers, hears nothing but the chugging of the engine and the wailing of the tracks. Carefully, she steps both her feet into the aisle. She had not meekly removed her hand from the cabin door a full second before the doors hurried to slam as loudly as they could. The wall opposite the cabins is lined with windows, but none any clearer than those inside the cabin.

She carefully steps, almost tiptoeing, towards the nearest car door. She passes by empty cabin after empty cabin, each one with full luggage racks and wet windows and bright lights. She gets to the end of the car and forces open the door, with some difficulty. The space between the cars is uncovered. The metal floor has some texture for help with traction, but with the weather outside, the short leap from car to car looks unsure. No rail and no rope to guide her, she holds on dearly to the door frame and reaches forward her right foot as far as it might travel, almost reaching the next car door. There, the floor isn't as slippery and she feels confident about bringing the rest of her body in sequence. Standing right up against the new car door with no space for leverage and sharp rain at her back, she forces open the door a few inches until she's able to stick her foot in the gap. From there, she squeezes in her knee, then her thigh, and so on until she's able to squeeze fully through. The doors slam back together as soon as her last finger makes it out the other side and she falls to her knees from the force of the doors. She looks up. A tall man waits on the other end of the car. It looks like a dining car, but to her disappointment, there are no other passengers dining there. It doesn't really matter. There is someone else here, that's what matters.

"Sorry. Those doors are heavy." She stands back up. The man makes no motion, but replies, "No need to be sorry. You didn't make those doors. And they're the only way to pass between cars. Welcome. Take a seat." She scans the empty tables and chairs, all prepared for dining. She walks to a table, which is just like every table, and sits in a chair so that she might see out the window again. She glances out, hoping to see more than she had before, but the view is just as obstructed as ever. She looks back up to find the man standing over her table. Ordinarily, this would've startled her, but it is surprising how quickly one girl can adapt to strange things happening around her. Perhaps becoming used to it, using ancient survival programing to adapt to the unknown and the newly known, can be good, can help a girl to survive in a new circumstance. Perhaps this adaptation can cause more harm than good, numbing a girl to the strange and making her feel comfortable in a threatening situation. But for now, she doesn't think about this. She only wonders where this train is going and why she is the only passenger on it. Everything else sinks below her purview. When everything is strange, nothing is.

"How can I serve you today, ma'am?"

"I'll take a coffee, if you have it. And would you mind telling me, you see I fell asleep before and lost track of things, what the next stop is going to be?"

"Certainly. Cream or sugar?" She shakes her head, "Just black."

"Coming right up." He swiftly spins around and heads back toward the curtains in the rear, from whence he probably came. Before she can decide whether to call after him, in the same instant swiftness as before, he spins back around and says, "Almost forgot, next stop will be the end of the line. But no rush, we won't be arriving for a quite a while yet." He gives her a good look, an up and down. Even from this distance, his eyes feel around her and her muscles tense as she tries not to squirm; his eyes slide up and down her body. "Yes, it should be quite a while still, by the looks of it." And, with his famous speed and grace, he ducks through the curtains, leaving her, once more, alone in a car of this train.

Just on the other side of the glass, beads of rain race down, leaving behind them brief trails. A trail lasts no longer than a few moments before another raindrop blazes through on its own path, forgetting all drops and trails before it. But all these drops fall from the same cloud, which was perhaps gathered from the same body of water. And now the raindrops are fresh, even though the water they are made up of is so old, as old as any other water and as anything. And in the blurred landscape in the distance--

"Here you are, then." The coffee cup is filled all the way to the rim, almost impossibly to the rim, without a single drop on the saucer beneath. "Anything else I can get for you, ma'am?"

"Um, I think I should be fine with the coffee, but I'm afraid I've missed my stop. Could you please tell me how much further until the end or maybe if you have a schedule of the returning trains so I can get to where I need to be."

The man smiles widely, breathing full breaths through his bared teeth. "A return train? I'm afraid I don't understand. I'm sorry, I just work in this dining car. If you need any food or drinks to tide you over until we reach, then I can be of help. Anything outside of requests of that nature are strictly not my business." He continues standing above her, staring in that same searching way as before, but now at a much closer proximity.

"Alright then. Well, could I have an estimation of arrival." Her breaths are shallow and guarded.

"As I said, it won't be for a while still. So just make yourself comfortable. It's a long ride yet. No need spending the whole journey worrying when we shall reach our destination. Because then, before you know it, the ride will be over. And what a wasted journey it will have been."

"Right. Well, where are the other passengers? Have they already all gotten off?"

He smiles again, the same wide and empty smile. "The other passengers are on other trains, ma'am. This one is for you. I'm here to serve you."

She looks down into her coffee and looks at her distorted figure in the deep brown of the drink through the delicate steam. "I don't understand. Whose luggage is in the cabins?"

"Ma'am?"

"The cabins were full of luggage in the overhead. Whose luggage was that?"

"If there is any food or drink I can get you, please let me know."

She stands up, knocking into the table and spilling the overly-filled coffee. "Sorry." She stumbles away awkwardly, as if the man had taken over all the swiftness in the room and left her with none at all. As she takes her leave, he stays by the table and only watches as she struggles yet again to pry open the car doors and traverse the gap, offering no assistance and showing no change in disposition or humor.

She, with great difficulty, pulls herself through the narrow corridor past all the empty cabins, hoping to see even one face, be it sleeping, disagreeable, or even passed on, just as long as it belongs to anyone besides herself or the smiling man. She finally barges into one of the cabins and drags down one of the bags. It flies off the rack quite easily and she frowns and places it back. She easily picks up the one next to it. And the one next to that. She shakes her head, hoping to deny what she knows already to be true.

She grabs the last bag and throws it down on the carpet. She fumbles with the zipper, but it doesn't matter. She knew the moment she touched it that it would be just as empty as the others. Her fingers move too quickly for her eyes and the insistent pattering of the rain, the practiced howling of the train, and the emergent flickering of the lights speed up her breaths, her heart, and her fingers. Finally, the zipper cooperates and she sees inside what she already knew.

She drops her head into her hands, blocking the artificial flickering above that she knows will not cease until train service does. In the blackness of her covered eyes, she can see clearer than she has been able to since waking up on this train. It always seems to take so long to realize and it never seems to get any easier, night after night after every night. The days are tedious and repetitious and they forget themselves to each other, following one another and pretending to be as fresh as their predecessors promised they would be. Then, like any other machine, the sun will set like its supposed to and the nights will last forever and they start to make up more of life than the days. And no matter how hard a girl can try to stay awake, sleep will come and it brings with it delusions and visions just as real as those seen in the day. And these prisons may look different night to night, but without fail a girl is trapped and she will endure its trials and punishments until she wakes. And when she wakes, the day is only flashes of consciousness, spent waiting for the night to fall. And when eventually the starlit pall tucks the body in, the night feels like a whole lifetime. When the morning dawns and escape becomes possible, the immured life lived in the night dies. A life not received graciously, but a life regardless. Nothing to do but ride the train until morning--

"Can I help you, ma'am?" In the glow of her adjusting sight stands the dining car man, now wearing a red bell hop uniform.

"No. Not hungry. Thank you."

"I meant help with the luggage. If you're hungry, you find my colleague in the dining car."

"I'm not."

"Well, if there is any assistance you may need, do not hesitate to ask."

"Do you happen to know where this train is heading."

"To the end of the line, ma'am. But still a ways away, I'd say."

She looks out the streaked window at the wet darkness outside. "Right. In the morning."

She's met with the familiar broad-toothed smile. "I cannot tell you how long, but I can assure you we will not be reaching in the morning. We can only reach at night. You know this already, ma'am. Don't you?"

"I'm not sure I do."

"The end will always be reached at night. There's no other way." His puzzled expression lures her in, but she fights to stay lucid. With a hopeful breath she asks, "Could you tell me where we are?"

"I'm afraid I don't understand. We're on the train. And the train is on the tracks." She stands up and takes another grounding breath. She brushes past him into the corridor and continues on down the row. He spins to watch her leave.

She trudges through car after car after car of empty cabins. Over and over and over the same thing. Empty benches canopied with empty luggage. At the end of each cabin another door that is a feat to open, just to lead to yet another empty car like all the others. Each door hiding behind it the promise of something new and great, but as soon as it is fought through it provides just another car of empty cabins. Her steps become labored as do her breaths. With each passing car, it seems a bit of her stays behind and doesn't make it through the doors. It could have been twenty or two hundred or two hundred thousand cars. And the number wouldn't have mattered anyways, because it's just one train.

With the most difficulty yet, she flies through a car door and is spat out on the other side. She looks up to see the same empty dining car from before. With an oppressed sigh she dusts herself off and stands up. "How can I serve you today, ma'am?"

Without responding, she walks across the car towards the smiling man and brushes right past him and his too-knowing eyes. He turns to track her, but says nothing more. She arrives at the curtains at the back of the car and pauses briefly before sliding through.

On the other side of the curtains, she finds herself in the conductors quarters at the very front of the train. Finally, she can see clearly through the glass. Lining the tracks is a blur of rainswept lush greenery, but beyond the narrow verdant strip is cascading, barren, and charred blackness. The tracks are laid out straight and, despite the rain, she can see quite far. And as far as she can see is nothing but the same, all the way down the line.

"I didn't expect to see you here until the end. But maybe we've reached earlier than I thought we would." It's a woman's voice and it's familiar, but she cannot place it and something deep inside her severely wishes not to find out. With extreme trepidation and in spite of herself, she creeps forward to peek at the conductor. With half relief and half fear of the conductor, she slides into the empty seat within the quarters. "Just until morning," she says to herself.

"You keep saying that, but I'm not sure why."

"When I wake up, then I can finally get off this train and carry on with my life."

The conductor laughs to herself. "Don't you remember? You did wake up. On the train."

Her tone shifts, frustrated at having to argue with herself. "I know, but I mean when I wake up from this dream."

"How can this be a dream? Dreams don't like to follow rules, but there is one rule that all dreams follow."

This makes her think for a moment. She looks across into her own eyes, trying to hide underneath the conductor's cap. "Just until morning."

"Didn't you hear our friend before? We won't reach the end in the morning. Like all things, this ends when the lights go out. That's how you know this can't be a dream."

"What do you mean?" The conductor ignores herself. She takes off her conductors hat and places it on her own head.

"Don't you think it's funny how I sit here and I pretend like I'm controlling the train, but I could fall asleep and I'd still be going along the same tracks. I don't get to decide where the train goes. I didn't get to lay the tracks. I just get to follow them. If I wanted, I could stop the train at any time, but I don't. I just keep heading down these tracks until they end. And only at the end can I get off. And when I do, that's it. And then what?"

"And then we live a new day."

"New is a funny word. For us, these tracks are new, but they already existed, didn't they? And everything between here and the end will be new to us, too. But that doesn't make it new."

"Well, that's not a very good example."

"Why not?"

"Because look at it. It's all just the same. None of this is new. It's just all the same."

"It is, isn't it? Just like everything." She smiles at herself but doesn't receive a smile back.

"Hey, don't worry, now. The end will be something new."

"But I thought it was about the journey, not the destination."

"Well, you tell me. Has it been?"

"I don't know. I guess I'll have to wait for the destination."

"Oh, it shouldn't be long now. Don't worry. It'll be over soon." She holds her own hand across the narrow aisle and together, with herself, she rides unstrayingly down the tracks.