The Slow Train

            She picked at the skin around her fingernails as she stared out the window. She didn’t realize how long she had been doing this until she noticed the crimson bloodstains around her left thumb. The slight iron smell invaded her senses, and she stopped. The endless grassy fields merged into each other, and then they were peppered with soft yellow flowers until even those morphed into a carpet of sand that drifted into the glittering ocean. She slipped her hands in her pockets and closed her eyes. Staring out the window did little to calm her anxiety. She focused on her breathing. She thought that life was passing her by as quick as the scenery changed outside her window. As these thoughts sped through her mind, the rhythm of the train’s slow chugging lulled her to sleep. Unwanted suggestions of running away from her problems invaded her dreams.

The long forlorn whistle of the train woke her from her fitful sleep in the middle of the night. All the other passengers in her train car had left. Alone, at last, she walked out onto the platform to get fresh air. The cold wind slapped at her face and caused her eyes to sting. While the train drove at a slow pace before, it seemed like it sped by faster. The scenes around her blurred together and looked like one big dark mass. She kneeled on the ground, trying to catch her breath, and then they were thrust into a tunnel so dark she could only see her bright white shoes in front of her.

She entered the empty car in front of her. The windows were wide open, and the wind whipped at her hair, and her jacket billowed around her. She tried to push her hair back and raced to the next car, then the next, and the one after that until she reached the front of the train. Horrified, she realized no one was driving the speeding train, and she was the sole passenger.

Then, hundreds of papers flew out of a suitcase and surrounded her. When they fell and stopped blocking her vision, she stood in the middle of a bridge. She looked down and saw nothing but an uninviting stone-cold sea far below. She heard the train whistle and looked up in time to see the beaming light burst out of the dark tunnel. She felt frozen in time as it sped toward her, hearing the screeches of the brakes and knowing it would never stop in time. She began running away from it, but then she knew she had to jump. She fell into the deep abyss before her, not knowing what would happen next, and then plunged into the icy water.

It enveloped her and soothed her. She realized she felt none of the pain or cold that she expected. She looked at her hands and watched the blood wash out from under her fingernails. A burst of sunlight emerged above her. She swam up and broke through the surface, then – the conductor shook her awake as the train chugged into the station.

The golden sun rising over the mountains was a disorienting sight compared to the cold night in her dreams. She looked out onto the platform and saw her family waiting for her, smiling. Warmth washed over her as she smiled and grabbed her bags. She stepped off the train without looking and landed right in a puddle. She glanced down at her white shoes, now soaking wet. She took one step forward into the knowledge that she was not alone and pulled her hands out of her pockets.

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