Train Station

I’m standing on the smallest outdoor train platform I’ve ever seen. Like it’s the last station on the line in a small Asian countryside. Truthfully, I have no idea, since I can’t see past this fog for more than ten feet in any direction. It’s so thick it’s like the zombie apocalypse out here. But there aren’t any undead clamoring to eat my organs yet. I don’t dare venture out into that fog, even so. I prefer the station to the undead, thanks.

There’s a railroad track that runs left to right in front of me, emerging from nothing and then retreating back into it, pointlessly. The whole track could run in a giant oval, for all I know. But all I want is to get on that train‒any train‒and get the heck out of here. It’s so quiet, I feel suspended in some sort of vacuum in space. It’s so eerie it sets me on edge in a way I’d never known possible.

“H-hello?” I venture. Who exactly I’m saying this to, I have no idea. Maybe I just need to hear my own voice. Establish I’m still alive and not in some purgatory. And haven’t, you know, gone completely insane.

I sit on the bench I’ve discovered behind me. There’s an old-fashioned station overhang with three walls that provides shelter from the weather. Or it would, if there was anything other than fog around here.

I squint through the fog, first to the left, then to the right. I feel like something’s just about to jump out and stab me if I set a single foot out from my shelter. My hands, resting on the bench on either side of me, curl into tense fists. I am going to die out here, completely alone, unless some train comes like now. But no train comes. And neither does any knife-wielding stranger.

So I stay alive. If you can call this living.

Is there really no train schedule? I get up and walk counter-clockwise around the wood and metal overhang. Moving through the fog-choked air hurts my ears; the silence is deafening. The left side of the stop has nothing on it, and never has, it seems. Clean as a fresh piece of paper. The back of the enclosure gives me pause. It’s covered in so many old schedules and advertisements, it’s hard to see there’s a wooden wall beneath it all. These papers are all so torn, faded, or warped with time that they’re impossible to read. All I can see on them is that they have many more exclamation points than they probably need. Some have been up for months, I’d say, but others have been plastered there for years. Perhaps some were only posted for show, as a favor to their cousin, maybe. I pass this wall by, shaking my head at this low-key madness. I turn the corner, hoping against hope that maybe the train schedule is posted on the outside of this third wall. Lo and behold, it is! But only the top half is still there, and it’s from three years ago. The lower half is long gone, torn off deliberately, from the looks of it. I could wring the fool’s neck.

I return to sit on the cold, wooden bench. It shouldn’t be this cold. It’s wood. Not that there’s anything normal about this place, anyway.

I wait. And wait. And wait some more. I look at my watch to see how long it’s been, but it appears to have stopped ticking. Not sure when that happened. I look up, gaze into the never-ending void of fog, and wonder what I did to deserve this.

Finally, I can’t stand it any longer. I am getting out of this fog purgatory, zombies or knife-wielders be darned. I step down from the platform and start to walk the tracks. There’s no vibration to indicate a coming train. I’m not even vaguely surprised, at this point.

I walk along the tracks for what feels like miles. The world becomes confined to just me, the tracks, and the fog. I almost long for a zombie hand to reach out and grab me, just to break up this maddening monotony. The tracks still have no vibration. It feels as though they’ve flatlined. Maybe there was no heartbeat to begin with.

Suddenly, on my left, dead ahead- there’s a vague outline, a shadow. I rush forward. Finally! Something that can help me, or maybe even someone. The shape is too large to be a person, I see. It’s a new structure of some sort‒

Except it’s not. It’s just another train station. I come to a standstill in front of it. With a sinking heart, I circle it. It’s the same one I just left. Because of course it is.

I fall to my knees in front of it, on the dead tracks. There is no escaping this place. There’s no train coming to save the damsel in distress. It’s fruitless to hold onto any fleeting hopes. The tears come before I can stop them. I scream as I double over, defeated for the last time.

My eyes jolt open. I’m back in my desk chair, head down on the desk. I slowly raise it, eyes bleary. My computer screen wakes with an abrupt brightness at my subtle movement. I’m blinded. Once I can see more than the purple rectangle imprinted on my eyeballs, I look to the window at my right. It’s still dark out. Only a dim streetlight glows through the blinds.

I look back to my screen and see what’s there. Ah, yes. My usual déjà vu.

Some part of me just gave up on this application (my eightieth one, now), since no one’s checking their email this early in the morning. Still, I finalize a few last details, check the last box that confirms how I’ve definitely read the terms and conditions. Then I click Submit. It congratulates me, saying how they’ll get back to me soon, if there’s a match! The enthusiasm tugs my mouth up in a grin on one side.

“A promise for another train that’ll never come,” I muse.