Idol Meanderings: Stuck Between Stations
Today, on the hundredth anniversary of my death, I am finally going to go through with it. I think. That is, I think it's the hundredth anniversary, not that I think I'm going to do it. Counting days over such a vast stretch of time, in the dark and alone, one's never really sure they got it right. It's not like I can just pop off and look it up online, or check the paper. Or even watch the sun trace its path through the sky, cycle after cycle for thirty six thousand five hundred repetitions, not from down here. I guess that would make more sense if I explained where 'here' was, and that's probably best gotten to through the telling of how I came to be here.
It all started with Amanda. She appeared in my life one day out of the blue, a new hire in the department next to mine. We didn't work directly with each other, just for the same company, running into each other by chance here and there. A hello in the hallway, some chit-chit in the elevator, on occasion the pleasant banter those waiting for meetings to begin share with each other. She always had a smile for me that lit up the day, sometimes a wink and a giggle when I said something funny or foolish. It soon became the highlight of my daily grind, those little snatches of interaction.
But I could never bring myself to do it. That next step, whether an invitation to go get coffee or lunch, or to hang out after work. What I wanted so badly but could never make myself do. That right there, sadly, was the story of my life. It was the whole reason I was still with the company when Amanda started there. Hating my job but fearful of what a change might bring, what failures awaited. Wanting, not doing. And I lingered on, even when the economy turned for the worse and the office moved to a smaller building downtown. Commuting by subway for long hours each day, one of the hundreds of metro zombies shuffling away our lives. She thought it was good of me, showing dedication to the company, so I continued.
So it was that morning, grey and rainy and glum, following the other hopeless souls onto the train car. We stood in a pack, furtively gazing about for anything vaguely interesting but looking away in a panic should you accidentally make eye contact. Most just listened to their music players and stared at the floor, white headphones plugged in their ears so they could check out. We disappeared into the tunnel, into the dark, swaying and bumping with the usual motions of the ride. Eventually I realized I was just standing along the edge of the tunnel, watching the trains go past with their clatter and squeals.
It seems when you die your soul just edits out that part, like I just stepped through the train to wait along the path. The scorch marks and damaged brickwork belied the fact we didn't go as cleanly as all that. Some remember more than others, but the actual death, none knew how. But we were very, definitely deceased. It seemed chintzy, like a bad B-level horror film students do, all of us looking as we did that morning but partly transparent. All of us were not ALL of us, merely a handful from the train full of commuters. But it was more than just I, to start. We stood along the tracks avoiding the trains, talking it out and trying to figure out what happened.
It didn't take long to figure out we were stuck where we died. Wandering down the tunnel in either direction worked for a while, but not too far away you felt yourself... fade. That's the best way to put it. You lost more and more of what made you you, while at the same time the world around you faded to grey. Ceasing to be as the world slipped away. If you tried hard, at the edge of where you couldn't stand to go any further, you could make out the light from the platform up ahead though the fog the world had become. But going either direction wouldn't get you there, at least without pushing further into the unknown. All we had was each other, a length of dark uninteresting tunnel, and the trains.
It seemed to me a fitting demise. I couldn't move on to something new in life, why would I in death? I just watched the trains go by, watching through the windows hoping I could see her one more time. Day after day, train after train. I must have voiced that opinion often, eventually the others would cut me off and tell me to give it a rest. I wish I could. Others did, deciding that anything was better than haunting nothing, and just kept going down the tunnel and never came back. Moved on. But I can't. What if the next one, I got to see her again?
Days became weeks, weeks years, years piled up. Most had left by then, realizing what they held on for no longer mattered, going the grey instead. The last straw for the rest of them was when the trains stopped. The earth had heaved with a terrible wrench and pitch, quickly followed by most of the lights going out as part of the tunnel collapsed. No more trains, no more people, at least the living kind. Nobody here but us ghosts, sitting alone in the dark. Then, eventually, nobody here but this ghost, all the others having moved on. I waited, sure that eventually something would change, back to what it was. But it won't, I know that now. The tunnels filled with water over time, one direction completely clogged with debris. Nobody came to reopen it. Nobody's coming to reopening.
As it dawned on me that it's been a hundred years, another realization came. She's gone. I didn't know if she even noticed I stopped coming to work, or what happened to me, or if it even mattered. She lived a life while I clung to the shadow of one. And if what stopped the trains didn't kill her, she would have passed long ago anyway. I couldn't stay down here any longer, fearing whatever change would come to me. It all changed anyway. So today I enter the grey, and I won't look back. No longer stuck between stations, stuck between decisions, stuck between existences. Today I don't want, I do.
It all started with Amanda. She appeared in my life one day out of the blue, a new hire in the department next to mine. We didn't work directly with each other, just for the same company, running into each other by chance here and there. A hello in the hallway, some chit-chit in the elevator, on occasion the pleasant banter those waiting for meetings to begin share with each other. She always had a smile for me that lit up the day, sometimes a wink and a giggle when I said something funny or foolish. It soon became the highlight of my daily grind, those little snatches of interaction.
But I could never bring myself to do it. That next step, whether an invitation to go get coffee or lunch, or to hang out after work. What I wanted so badly but could never make myself do. That right there, sadly, was the story of my life. It was the whole reason I was still with the company when Amanda started there. Hating my job but fearful of what a change might bring, what failures awaited. Wanting, not doing. And I lingered on, even when the economy turned for the worse and the office moved to a smaller building downtown. Commuting by subway for long hours each day, one of the hundreds of metro zombies shuffling away our lives. She thought it was good of me, showing dedication to the company, so I continued.
So it was that morning, grey and rainy and glum, following the other hopeless souls onto the train car. We stood in a pack, furtively gazing about for anything vaguely interesting but looking away in a panic should you accidentally make eye contact. Most just listened to their music players and stared at the floor, white headphones plugged in their ears so they could check out. We disappeared into the tunnel, into the dark, swaying and bumping with the usual motions of the ride. Eventually I realized I was just standing along the edge of the tunnel, watching the trains go past with their clatter and squeals.
It seems when you die your soul just edits out that part, like I just stepped through the train to wait along the path. The scorch marks and damaged brickwork belied the fact we didn't go as cleanly as all that. Some remember more than others, but the actual death, none knew how. But we were very, definitely deceased. It seemed chintzy, like a bad B-level horror film students do, all of us looking as we did that morning but partly transparent. All of us were not ALL of us, merely a handful from the train full of commuters. But it was more than just I, to start. We stood along the tracks avoiding the trains, talking it out and trying to figure out what happened.
It didn't take long to figure out we were stuck where we died. Wandering down the tunnel in either direction worked for a while, but not too far away you felt yourself... fade. That's the best way to put it. You lost more and more of what made you you, while at the same time the world around you faded to grey. Ceasing to be as the world slipped away. If you tried hard, at the edge of where you couldn't stand to go any further, you could make out the light from the platform up ahead though the fog the world had become. But going either direction wouldn't get you there, at least without pushing further into the unknown. All we had was each other, a length of dark uninteresting tunnel, and the trains.
It seemed to me a fitting demise. I couldn't move on to something new in life, why would I in death? I just watched the trains go by, watching through the windows hoping I could see her one more time. Day after day, train after train. I must have voiced that opinion often, eventually the others would cut me off and tell me to give it a rest. I wish I could. Others did, deciding that anything was better than haunting nothing, and just kept going down the tunnel and never came back. Moved on. But I can't. What if the next one, I got to see her again?
Days became weeks, weeks years, years piled up. Most had left by then, realizing what they held on for no longer mattered, going the grey instead. The last straw for the rest of them was when the trains stopped. The earth had heaved with a terrible wrench and pitch, quickly followed by most of the lights going out as part of the tunnel collapsed. No more trains, no more people, at least the living kind. Nobody here but us ghosts, sitting alone in the dark. Then, eventually, nobody here but this ghost, all the others having moved on. I waited, sure that eventually something would change, back to what it was. But it won't, I know that now. The tunnels filled with water over time, one direction completely clogged with debris. Nobody came to reopen it. Nobody's coming to reopening.
As it dawned on me that it's been a hundred years, another realization came. She's gone. I didn't know if she even noticed I stopped coming to work, or what happened to me, or if it even mattered. She lived a life while I clung to the shadow of one. And if what stopped the trains didn't kill her, she would have passed long ago anyway. I couldn't stay down here any longer, fearing whatever change would come to me. It all changed anyway. So today I enter the grey, and I won't look back. No longer stuck between stations, stuck between decisions, stuck between existences. Today I don't want, I do.