The Adjustment

Anna woke up to a throbbing headache and the sound of rattling railcars on the tracks. “Did I doze off?” she thought to herself as she rubbed her tired eyes. Her vision was blurry at first, until she felt her glasses in the inner pocket of her denim jacket. After donning her wireframe, aviator style eyeglasses, her surroundings came into focus. Where was she?

The train was clearly moving incredibly fast, perhaps at bullet train speeds. But she didn’t remember taking a trip to Japan, and the landscape passing her by reminded her more of the Great Plains. Her headache was getting worse as she pushed her glasses up, pinched the bridge of her nose, and squeezed her eyes shut to try and alleviate the pain.

When her glasses fell back into place and her eyes came into focus, it became apparent that she was the only one aboard this car. She looked up and down the aisle for any sign of another passenger: a suitcase, a backpack, a pair of headphones. Nothing.

“What the hell is going on?...” she whispered as she slowly stood up to try and spot a head of hair, bald spot, or baseball cap in the seats ahead of her. “Hello!” she shouted to the empty car. No response. No sign of movement in the cars ahead or behind her.

She left her brown leather carry-on bag on the blue cloth seat as she shuffled out of the row. After stepping into the aisle, she began walking briskly to the door between her car and the one ahead of it. When she opened the door and passed between cars, she noticed that this car too was empty. No heads, no suitcases, nothing. Her panic slowly rising, she jogged into the next car. Empty too. Advancing six more cars, her jog became a run, which became a sprint. Eventually, out of breath and in full panic mode, she stopped in the seventh car and shouted, “HELLO! Is anyone out there?! Where am I?! This isn’t funny!”

It was then that she heard a scuffling sound from the door behind her. Swinging her head around, she spotted a Conductor passing between the sixth and seventh cars. His head was bowed, obscuring his face behind the brim of his navy and gold hat. The Conductor’s uniform was adorned with gold shoulder marks and embroidered with gold lettering across the right breast that spelled “CONDUCTOR”.

He entered the seventh car and lifted his head to meet her eyes. Something about him was oddly familiar, but she didn’t know anyone with a bushy mustache like his. As he approached, Anna noticed that he was quite tall, perhaps four inches more than she. The Conductor stopped in front of her and removed his hat, pushing his hair back in an attempt to remedy his hat hair. It didn’t work.

When he finally spoke, it was a low, soothing tone that emanated authority and comfort. Anna’s panic slowly subsided, but her anger rose as she said to the Conductor through gritted teeth, “Where the hell am I? I’ve been screaming for help and you’re just now coming to help me?”

“I know, and I’m sorry,” the Conductor said in his most soothing voice. “I heard you calling, but I couldn’t find your car.”

“There’s noone else here and you still couldn’t find me?!” She couldn’t keep her voice from rising.

“It’s a bit more complicated than that. Why don’t we take a seat? This one’s yours is it not?”

Anna glanced down at the blue cloth seat next to her and noticed her brown leather carry-on bag. “What… how?....” she said, shocked by what she was seeing.

“Let’s sit.” He guided her into the blue cloth seat and sat in the seat across the aisle. “Do you know where you are?” He asked her.

She sat in silence for what seemed like hours, her head spinning from the pain of a headache that was clearly getting worse, until she forced herself to say, “No… I have no clue where I am.”

“I think you do,” the Conductor replied. “Look a little closer.”

Anna glanced out the large polycarbonate windows and studied the passing landscape, adjusting her glasses to help her eyes focus. After several seconds, it finally clicked. This train was traveling through the pastures in her home town in Kansas, though she did not remember a train ever passing through before.

“I-I don’t understand. There aren’t, or at least weren’t, any trains that passed through here when I was growing up. Come to think of it, I’ve never seen a single train track here in my whole life. How did we get here?”

“That’s a rather sad story I’m afraid,” the Conductor replied, an understanding smiling forming on his face. “You see, this train is your Adjustment.”

“My Adjustment?” Anna broke her gaze from the landscape and met the Conductor’s eyes.

“Yes, see that’s what they, or rather ‘we’, call it. It’s meant to be quite relaxing, but sometimes, when a conductor cannot find their passenger, it can have the opposite effect, like it did for you.” He paused briefly. “I really am sorry that it took me so long to find you. I wish this could have been a more pleasant experience for you.”

“What you getting at? Relaxing? I’ll relax when you finally explain to me what the hell is going on here,” she said, clearly frustrated by the Conductor’s evasive answers.

He spoke very slowly and enunciated each word so the message was crystal clear. “Well, a passenger’s Adjustment is what we call the phase in between their death, and what lies ahead of them.”

His words hit Anna with the force of a bullet train. She sat there in stunned silence for what seemed like forever, staring at the Conductor in disbelief. She felt as though her head would split open from the pain. It was unbearable, and the news, the unbelievable news only made it worse. “What are you saying?... Am I…”

“Dead?” the Conductor interjected, finishing Anna’s sentence. “Well actually you’re not quite dead yet. Your body is in the ambulance right now and they’re rushing you to the hospital. But if I’m being frank, the chances of your body coming back from this are slim to none.”

They sat together in silence for several moments while she digested the Conductor’s words. “B-b-b-but I don’t understand how this happened… I don’t remember anything like that before I got here. I think I’d remember something as monumental as my death.”

“You see that’s just it: passengers never remember their deaths, and it’s my job to remind you. See, you were in an accident.”

“An accident?” Anna asked. “But I don’t…”

“I’m sorry to cut you off, but this will probably be easier if you just let me explain the entire story.” She didn’t find his interruption rude. She yearned for the answers he was about to provide. “You were driving home from your parents’ house after visiting them for Thanksgiving. It was late at night, and the headlights were, let’s face it, completely worthless, but you loved that old car. All the wrong things happened at all the wrong times, and you crashed. Your airbag didn’t deploy, which is why you have such a bad headache now.”

The Conductor paused to let the shock of what he said soak in. Anna’s eyes filled with tears as the memory of that night flooded her mind. Needless to say, this only made her headache worse.

When the Conductor began again, she could see that he was measuring every word as if what he was about to say was a delicate topic.

“You weren’t alone either. Your fiancé was in the passenger seat.”

Her jaw dropped when he said these words, and the tears began to flow down her face. “Oh my god… What have I done?” Anna put her head in her hands as she began to sob.

The Conductor’s hand found its way onto Anna’s shoulder, and he squeezed in a way that screamed, “I’m so sorry for your pain and I wish I could take it all from you.”

“I’m sorry that you have to hear all this, but we’re supposed to tell you so you have all the information.”

“I can’t believe this is happening…” Anna said in between sobs.

“Do you recognize me?” he asked abruptly.

This question took her by surprise, but she raised her head and met the Conductor’s gaze. After studying his face for a minute, her eyes widened in realization. “Oh my god… it’s you…” Her eyes again filled with tears and her face contorted with grief. She flung her arms around the Conductor’s neck and pulled him into a tight hug. “I didn’t recognize you with the mustache. Why didn’t I recognize you?” She whispered in his ear.

“Yeah.” He chuckled sadly. “I thought I’d try something new because I was never able to grow a full ‘stache. Do you like it?”

“It’s awful!” she laughed too between sobs.

“Heh, yeah, you’re right. It is. I don’t know what I was thinking.” The Conductor paused and smiled while he watched Anna’s tears stream down her face. “It’s not uncommon for a passenger to forget, albeit briefly, the people she knew in life. I begged and pleaded with them to let me be your conductor. I thought you might appreciate all this news coming from someone you love.”

“I can’t believe you’re here. I killed you! Oh my god… I killed you…” Anna sobbed, her voice becoming slightly hysterical.

“Hey, hey,” the Conductor replied soothingly, “none of that matters anymore. That kind of stuff only matters to the living. Around here, the only thing that counts is moving on. I’m happy here. I’m happy that I get to help you through your Adjustment.”

All of a sudden, Anna’s headache disappeared. She slowly raised her head from her hands, looked around the car, and out the large polycarbonate windows at the passing fields. Without all the pain, her surroundings were bathed in a new clarity.

The Conductor pulled out a gold pocket watch from his inside jacket pocket and read the dials and hands within. “Your headache just disappeared didn’t it?”

“Yeah. How did you know?” replied Anna. At that same instant, the sound of screeching brakes filled the air and the two people shifted as the train began to slow.

“I knew, because my watch informed me that your body just took its last breath. That’s why we’re slowing down now. We’re approaching the one and only station before this train takes you onward,” the Conductor explained. “You’ll have two options when we arrive. You can step off this train and pass through the station which will allow you to live again, but in a new body and a new life, or you can stay in your seat and ride on, in which case all your pain and grief will be stripped away and you’ll finally be at peace.”

Anna could not believe her ears. She could have another chance at life; another chance to grow up, fall in love, see new places, taste new foods. Her excitement was building, until a blunt realization washed over her. “What about you?,” Anna asked, “Will you be coming with me?”

The Conductor smiled a most understanding smile at her. “No. I’m afraid I will not join you if you step off this train,” he said calmly, “I’ve already had my Adjustment. Time works funny around here. I mean my body only passed minutes before yours, and yet it feels like years to me since my Adjustment. Plus, a passenger can only depart at their own station. This station is yours, not mine.”

Her heart plummeted into her stomach. How could she make such a difficult decision? She didn’t feel ready to go on yet, but she was afraid to depart this place without him.

He seemed to read her thoughts. “You’re not sure if you’re ready yet, are you?”

Anna’s lip began to tremble again. “No… I don’t think I am. But I’m afraid to get off without you.”

“Let me help you then.” The Conductor stood up and offered his hand to her. She took it, reluctantly, and he helped her out of the seat. They began to walk to the door between cars as the train rolled to a stop.

She felt as though she was watching her body from above as she took one step after another, out the doors and onto the platform. The red brick station was covered in a white haze, like a cloud so impossibly low. The Conductor raised his arm and pointed to a single turnstile, leading into a haze so dense, that she could not see beyond it.

“That turnstile will take you where you need to go,” he explained. “Just walk through, and all this will feel like a distant dream.”

Again, her body moved, but she did not feel as though she was the one controlling it. She was almost to the turnstile when she stopped and looked back at the Conductor, her eyes red and puffy from the crying and tears continuing to stream. “I love you so much,” she sobbed, “what if I never see you again?...”

“You will,” he replied. “Next time you come here, I’ll be waiting for you, and this time I’ll find you like that.” He snapped his fingers and grinned at her. “I love you to the moon and back. I always have, and I always will. When you’re ready to ride this train, I’ll be right there by your side, no matter how many times it takes. And when the time comes, we’ll take that ride together, because I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Anna smiled solemnly, crossed her heart with her fingers, and turned back. The turnstile ratcheted as she walked through.