The Elmira Falls Express

The ticket, creased and clammy in his palm, felt like a warrant for his own vanishing. Elmira Falls, it read, in faded black ink. Elmira Falls. He didn’t know anyone there. Hadn't even looked it up. Just saw the name on a crumpled map tacked to a bulletin board in the station, a name small enough, forgotten enough, to promise nothing. Nothing was what he was after, or maybe, everything he had left to offer.

The platform was a skeletal thing, cold concrete stretching into the gloom, lit by a single flickering bulb that hummed an old, tired song. A thin, biting wind whipped around his ankles, carrying the metallic tang of train grease and stale rain. He pulled his threadbare coat tighter, the worn fabric doing little against the chill that seemed to seep straight into his bones. His duffel bag, packed days ago with the last remnants of a life he couldn’t stomach, dug into his shoulder.

The train itself was an old brute, clanking into the station with a sigh of steam and a groan of metal. Its painted skin was peeling, the windows smeared with the grime of countless journeys. It looked like it had seen too many departures, too many arrivals, too many hopeful faces and too many haunted ones. Arthur felt a kinship with its weary exterior. He climbed aboard, the step up feeling impossibly heavy, like hoisting himself onto a funeral pyre.

Inside, the carriage was deserted, save for the ghost of old cigarette smoke and the musty scent of forgotten upholstery. The seats, once plush, were now threadbare, their springs creaking in protest as he settled into a window seat, far from the door. He pressed his forehead against the cold glass, watching the station lights shrink to pinpricks. The train lurched, a violent shudder, then began to roll. Slow at first, then gaining a rhythmic, relentless pace, a heartbeat thrumming beneath his feet.

He closed his eyes, but the dark behind his lids offered no escape. Just the replay of the last six months, a broken reel. The bank statements, bold numbers mocking him from the kitchen table. Her face, tear-streaked, saying, 'I can't do this anymore, Arthur. I just can't.' The hollow ache in his chest when he watched her car pull away, taking with it the last shard of anything resembling a future he’d imagined. He’d just sat there for three days after, the silence of the apartment a physical weight, crushing him, until the idea of a train, any train, became a lifeline.

He watched the landscape blur into smears of black and grey. Industrial parks, then endless fields. A lone farmhouse, its windows dark. Everything moving past, everything staying put. He was the only one moving, the only one leaving. Leaving what, exactly? A mess? A wreck? He hadn't bothered to clean up. Just walked out, locked the door, and left the key on the mat. Someone else’s problem now, or no one’s. He didn't care. He just couldn't be there anymore.

The train rattled on through the night, a metal beast chewing up the miles. The rhythmic click-clack of the wheels against the tracks became a lullaby, a monotonous hum that quieted the buzzing fear in his head, if only for a few moments. He drifted in and out of a restless sleep, his neck stiff, his dreams a jumble of half-forgotten faces and the cold, empty spaces they'd left behind. He woke with a jolt as the train slowed, a grinding protest of metal. Dawn was breaking, a thin, watery light bleeding across the horizon, painting the sky in sickly greys and muted purples.

He looked out the window. Elmira Falls. It wasn't a town, not really. Just a splintered wooden platform, barely wide enough for his feet. A single, dusty road disappearing into a sparse forest of skeletal trees. A faded sign, half-obscured by an overgrown bush, read 'Elmira Falls - Pop. 112'. Beyond it, a couple of weathered buildings, their windows like vacant eyes. No station house, no welcome, no human soul in sight. Just the vast, indifferent emptiness.

The train hissed to a complete stop. The door slid open with a wheeze, revealing nothing but the raw, cold morning air. This was it. The end of the line. For a fleeting second, a paralyzing thought struck him: what if he just stayed on? But the conductor, a thin man with a drooping mustache, appeared in the doorway. 'Elmira Falls,' he announced, his voice flat, devoid of inflection. Arthur swallowed, the taste of ash in his mouth. He picked up his bag, the weight familiar, comforting in its solid reality.

He stepped off the train, onto the rotting wood of the platform. The cold air slapped his face, sharp and clean. The train gave a final, mournful whistle, then began to pull away, slowly at first, then gathering speed, its grimy cars disappearing into the pale morning haze. He watched it go, a knot tightening in his gut. Then, he was alone. Utterly, completely alone. He looked down the dusty road, a dirt track stretching out before him, a blank canvas for a life he had no idea how to paint. He took a breath, the cold air burning his lungs, and started walking.