Train to Nowhere
Steam rose in mushroom swirls and translucent curls as I walked among the vents marked around the subway station. I checked my watch and watched the analog hands tick, erratically, through a cracked frame. Well, actually, it didn't tick at all. I just enjoyed basking in the inescapable illusion of having more time than I actually ever had. I had enough time to dilly-dally a bit about before I left for nowhere. I scanned the wares at the stands. The portly Italian selling the hot dogs drew my attention in more than those delicious dogs did in a non-I-kind-of-like-you-in-a-manly-six-pack-kind-of-way. Namely the ridiculous, feathered hat sitting atop his ring-haired head. His face sagged a bit. I dismissed the idea and watched the grave, solemn passengers scattered across the station. They stood about wordlessly. Aimlessly. It was silent. Forgive the history of this coined phrase, but, 'silent as the grave'. Even when the subway pulled up, you could hear a tack hit the floor. I was about to board the train, but before I stepped onto that long, silver, monolith of a nimrod, I stared at the destination on the travel boards.
Nowhere.
Gloomily, I stepped off and stared at a beautiful woman with a more than curvacious body. She sat on a bench in a zombie-like trance. Pale face. Dead eyes. Thick, healthy locks that must have felt lovely when you let them slide between your fingers. Fair game to guess it must have smelled like Heaven too. The sight, alone, was an enchating, intoxicating temptation. I fought off the urge to walk up and tug on it. After all, there was no point. There was no pleasure. This was a place where 'the sun don't shine' as they say. We were all in the same boat. We were all headed to nowhere. I looked around a bit more and spotted a middle-aged man. Balding. Glasses. Briefcase in hand. Long, suntan overcoat. Tie. Black, polished shoes. Belt. Ring. Watch.
And so, oh so dreadfully dull.
I looked at him a bit more, more than I would have, and thought of an actor back during my day who captured his image perfectly. Richard Jenkins. But I didn't dwell on him any longer than I needed to. I knew. I knew what was wrong.
There were no time tables in this station.
There was no flight of stairs to walk back out of.
There was only the cold, lifeless steel of the subway.
I sighed and watched as the permanent passengers littering the station started to fill up the train. They walked with no energy and no life. Head bowed, arms swaying, feet dragging across the floor. If I didn't know any better, I would have imagined I was inside a George A. Romero movie. But I always remembered.
There was no point. There was no purpose.
Silently, I followed them inside like a hideous wraith and I felt the regret pile up like carcasses within the decaying ruins of what was left of my broken soul. But I could not cry. My face was nothing more than a plastic shell, a manipulative exterior. I could not laugh, could not smile, could not scream or roar or screech. My mouth was set in a rigid line of solitude and my eyes always downcast and moody. My insides boiled like an inconsolable, raging inferno and I wanted nothing more than to lash out at my surroundings and not care who I struck, not care at all. I desperately pulled up my watch and willed it to move backwards, hoped with all of my mind that it would rewind. All I wanted was to go back. I would give anything to go back.
I looked at everyone else one more time before the train lurched. I felt it shudder and shake as the engine coughed to life.
I walked over to the window and pressed my face against the glass. We were speeding, accelerating, gaining so much speed that I couldn't tell what was what. But I caught glimpses. I saw memories. I kept a watchful gaze and focused everything of who I was on the outside. I saw so many things. Fights. Divorces. Break-ups. Tradgedies. Corruption. Murders. Betrayals. Loss. At one point, I caught a fleeting memory of the beautiful woman. She was alone in a terribly-lit bathroom crying her heart out and holding her head in agonizing pain as thick rivulets of blood ran down her forehead and dripped off and onto the tile floor. I heard the door banging and I heard screams of frustration. Anger. And then it was gone. The memory was only a split-second and no more than that, but it was so powerful and so colorful amidst all of this lifelessness that surrounded me now that I could not help but remember all of it in its gray glory. I glanced down the aisle and noticed everyone else staring out the window too. Some huddling into themselves. Some the same, dead marionettes that came in as they would soon leave.
I saw my own memories. My own, terrible past. It was like watching movies playing on the windows. Just out of reach. Just out of touch. But they weren't movies. They weren't just memories, not just visions, not just pasts long gone.
I felt the train scream as an impossible speed was reached and, for a moment, it sufficed as relection upon my own inner turmoil. I looked forward and watched as the memories suddenly blinked out like a television turned off and suddenly, we were flying across a blue, cloudless sky. And then there was nothing.
This was the train to nowhere.
Nowhere.
Gloomily, I stepped off and stared at a beautiful woman with a more than curvacious body. She sat on a bench in a zombie-like trance. Pale face. Dead eyes. Thick, healthy locks that must have felt lovely when you let them slide between your fingers. Fair game to guess it must have smelled like Heaven too. The sight, alone, was an enchating, intoxicating temptation. I fought off the urge to walk up and tug on it. After all, there was no point. There was no pleasure. This was a place where 'the sun don't shine' as they say. We were all in the same boat. We were all headed to nowhere. I looked around a bit more and spotted a middle-aged man. Balding. Glasses. Briefcase in hand. Long, suntan overcoat. Tie. Black, polished shoes. Belt. Ring. Watch.
And so, oh so dreadfully dull.
I looked at him a bit more, more than I would have, and thought of an actor back during my day who captured his image perfectly. Richard Jenkins. But I didn't dwell on him any longer than I needed to. I knew. I knew what was wrong.
There were no time tables in this station.
There was no flight of stairs to walk back out of.
There was only the cold, lifeless steel of the subway.
I sighed and watched as the permanent passengers littering the station started to fill up the train. They walked with no energy and no life. Head bowed, arms swaying, feet dragging across the floor. If I didn't know any better, I would have imagined I was inside a George A. Romero movie. But I always remembered.
There was no point. There was no purpose.
Silently, I followed them inside like a hideous wraith and I felt the regret pile up like carcasses within the decaying ruins of what was left of my broken soul. But I could not cry. My face was nothing more than a plastic shell, a manipulative exterior. I could not laugh, could not smile, could not scream or roar or screech. My mouth was set in a rigid line of solitude and my eyes always downcast and moody. My insides boiled like an inconsolable, raging inferno and I wanted nothing more than to lash out at my surroundings and not care who I struck, not care at all. I desperately pulled up my watch and willed it to move backwards, hoped with all of my mind that it would rewind. All I wanted was to go back. I would give anything to go back.
I looked at everyone else one more time before the train lurched. I felt it shudder and shake as the engine coughed to life.
I walked over to the window and pressed my face against the glass. We were speeding, accelerating, gaining so much speed that I couldn't tell what was what. But I caught glimpses. I saw memories. I kept a watchful gaze and focused everything of who I was on the outside. I saw so many things. Fights. Divorces. Break-ups. Tradgedies. Corruption. Murders. Betrayals. Loss. At one point, I caught a fleeting memory of the beautiful woman. She was alone in a terribly-lit bathroom crying her heart out and holding her head in agonizing pain as thick rivulets of blood ran down her forehead and dripped off and onto the tile floor. I heard the door banging and I heard screams of frustration. Anger. And then it was gone. The memory was only a split-second and no more than that, but it was so powerful and so colorful amidst all of this lifelessness that surrounded me now that I could not help but remember all of it in its gray glory. I glanced down the aisle and noticed everyone else staring out the window too. Some huddling into themselves. Some the same, dead marionettes that came in as they would soon leave.
I saw my own memories. My own, terrible past. It was like watching movies playing on the windows. Just out of reach. Just out of touch. But they weren't movies. They weren't just memories, not just visions, not just pasts long gone.
I felt the train scream as an impossible speed was reached and, for a moment, it sufficed as relection upon my own inner turmoil. I looked forward and watched as the memories suddenly blinked out like a television turned off and suddenly, we were flying across a blue, cloudless sky. And then there was nothing.
This was the train to nowhere.