A cursory look at my surroundings shows that I’m waiting for a train. I’m alone, I think. Someone sits nearby, but I can’t really tell if they’re real. Light permeates the ground around me and everything speaks in soft gold tones. Leaves litter the ground. Train tracks seem to go on forever in every direction, off into the golden red forest. Little stones lie between the wooden and metal bars. Not really sure what to do with myself, I started throwing them. One hits a tree with a nice thunk.
Something about this place feels weird. I feel it rise in my chest and spread out through my arms. Time lazily walks forward and plays in the leaves. I have nothing to do but wait for my train. An hour passes. Two. The sun seems to stay in its place. Maybe I’ve gone to the wrong train station? What does the train station even look like? I realize I’m sitting on a cold metal bench. It sits in front of a little glass closet. It’s old. Aren’t these kinds of buildings interesting? They’re not really meant to be the destination. You just pass though. Something to consider on your way home from work or school. The ground’s hard and cracked, and plants are growing through the floor. The walls are scratched and buffeted from the time it’s spent here. Maybe when the train comes, I could just not get on. Maybe I could just sit here and grow old in this room, until the plants grow through me. Until the sunlight finds me and warms my bitter skin. A man made of stone, watching others live, water flowing like time between my fingers as the seasons pass through my chest, plants growing and dying where my feet used to be. Maybe then I could just stay here for a little bit longer before the train arrives. Sadly, time continues its languid march forward. I can hear the train coming.
The train’s small, I can walk it’s length in a few large steps. I’m sitting on one end staring at the other. Light filters through the windows and dance on the floor, as if the golden sun itself were melting. As if gold were slowly filling the train car and staining every surface it can find. It’s warm. Someone gets on the train and sits next to me.
“Where are you heading?” they ask. I’m not really sure. Wherever the train goes, I guess. How about you?
“I’m going home.” And where’s that?
“Wherever the train stops.”
I look at the person sitting next to me. They have warm eyes and nice hands, and I decide that I like them. The sun sets and the air turns blue to purple. I can’t really see much anymore. The windows are like holes in the darkness of the train, and I can see the sky in all its infinite blue. It’s nice, just sitting here.
“Why did you get on the train?” They ask. “You could have just stayed outside.” I thought about it for a second, and I said I was practicing a certain degree of freedom that’s allowed.
“What do you mean?”
Well, when do we actually get to choose what happens? Like, the major life decisions? The things our parents do, the school we go to. Where and when we live. The teachers we have when we’re young, whether our parents are nice or mean. It’s all kinda random, don’t you think? “Yes, it can feel that way sometimes.”
Sometimes it may feel like we don’t actually have control over who we are or who we get to be. But we need those restrictions to actually be something. So, in the end, how much freedom do we actually get?
“Well, I could have chosen to not go to work this morning. I could have lied, and called in sick. Or I could have had a different kind of coffee. Free will doesn’t have to be your free will, does it? As long as you can distinguish yourself from other people, then you know your actions are yours, even if those actions aren’t necessarily entirely your own. It’s all still you.”
I responded, yeah, I guess you’re right. But sometimes the dread just creeps in a little too far, and you need some room to move. And the only freedom people can’t take from you is the decision to be known. Sure, I love my friends and family, but when people know you they take liberty over who you are, to some extent. It’s almost out of your control how others think about you. That’s just inevitably who you are around them. So when you take the time to be alone, then the only person you have to worry about is you. If you just let yourself be free for a second, then it doesn’t matter who you are. All that matters is that you can breathe and think without being anyone. No one has to know my name or the things I’ve done. That’s the freedom I’m taking, to be alone with myself and let myself get lost. Who knows where this train is going? It’s better if I don’t know.
The sun set and left us in darkness. Small lights came on under the seats, and softly illuminated my face blue and white. Without the sun, I have nothing to look at but my reflection in the window opposite to me. The lights left much to the imagination, I could really only see the consequences of my facial features but nothing that particularly looked like me. I couldn’t see the eyes, just the big wells where they should be. Every so often the lights of some far off building would cut through my blank expression. The lights go out. The sound of the train gets quieter as we come to a stop.
“Well, I hope you find what you’re looking for. Have a good night.”
“You too,” I say back. “Thank you for the conversation.”
I briefly considered getting off the train with them, to walk them home and be somewhere else. Or I could just keep going, and wait for the train to kick me off. But the doors never close and no one comes to get me. I look to the front and notice that there’s no driver. The train wasn’t gonna move. How long has it been? Five minutes? Ten? Is this the end of the track? Tentatively, I take a step out. The night air greets me softly and the moon looks gracefully upon the earth. Light snowfall’s starting to cover the ground. The bench I sat on earlier’s starting to pile up with snow. The building’s still intact, a little more scratched and a little more broken but still standing. I walk inside and greet myself sitting in the corner, vines growing through my cracked smile. Good to see you. He looks up with life in those stoney eyes and greets me.
I touch his hands and fall through the cracks in his gaze.
-Nathan Balk King, ’23