FATE TRAIN

My eyes popped open like a blinking ventriloquist doll when my head jolted upright. The residual pain in my neck was a reminder of the time I dived headfirst into a sandbank at some remote beach with a foreign language I never mastered. I had forgotten until now, the three cracked vertebrae and neck brace which only served to highlight my recklessness.

Passengers all around pushed up on atrophied legs to stretch their accordion bodies. As they reached for luggage on racks above their head, a chorus of groans followed. 

Queued behind each other in single file, they shuffled forward in flat heeled shoes. As they pass my seat, struggling to remain upright, I instinctively asked if they needed help. Their red rim eyes sunken in sallow faces, seemed to pity me more than I for them. 

A bell, ding donged through the carriage intercom followed by a dull announcement.

“Last stop, Old Age!”

Then, “Make sure you leave nothing behind.” 

I jolted forwarded in my seat, turned to my left and squinted through the window. Pulling my sleeve over my palm I rubbed the glass, blinked the sleep out of my eyes and looked again. 

A sign over the timber awning tagged the destination.

‘OLD AGE’ 

To the left of the building a rusty windmill stood tall, rotating lethargically under wispy clouds sailing ever so slowly under a blue sky.

I shook my head, “No! No! No! 

I expected a comforting hand to appear on my shoulder accompanied by a gentle voice telling me everything will be fine. I was ignored or just not heard. 

At the exit a rotund man appeared, dressed more like a circus ringleader than a train official. He wore a bucket cap decorated with twisted gold braid, red bow tie and a double-breasted jacket with shiny gold buttons gaping over his girth. He nodded his head to each passenger showing perfect teeth behind his false smile. The same smile I was accustomed to using myself. As each one stepped forward, he nodded and repeated his well-rehearsed, arrival spiel. 

“Thank you for travelling on The Fate Train.”

He placed a two page glossy booklet into their sinewy blotched hands, “This will explain the rules in our newly built facility. We trust you will be comfortable for the rest of your days here.”

‘Forever Spring’ sat low on the desert floor, its domed roof the perfect shape to withstand gale force winds. Also, an economical solution for insulation against cold desert nights. The outpost was devoid of colour except for the blue-grey saltbush pushing against a ten foot high cyclone fence. Would the new residents pick up on the mockery?

From my seat halfway along the aisle, I raise my hand in the air and wave frantically at the conductor.

“Excuse me! This is not my stop!” 

He waited until the last of geriatrics alighted to check his fob watch. Every day he allowed three minutes for disruptions. Today was running smoothly, until now. Another denialists, he thought. 

He waddled between the seats on ‘train legs’, a byproduct of his hours spent on board. “Madam, do you require assistance?” 

“I was meant to get off at Middle Age!”

He sighs, “I know you might not feel you are ready but…”

 “No, no, I need to go back. I’m too young!” 

Like a warden to an inmate, he says, “That’s what they all say.” 

“I’ll pay extra!” A bribe which I thought could buy me time. 

His Adam’s apple jiggled as he tried to swallow a scoff, “I’m sorry but the Fate Train doesn’t operate in reverse. It only continues forward on the loop.”

Hysteria building, I raised my arms in the air like an evangelist, “What vehicle in this universe has no reverse?”

He raised his eyebrows and shrugged the remnants of his limited charm from padded shoulders, “A space vehicle to the moon?”

Massaging my eyelids wasn’t calming me neither was pinching the bridge of my nose. I breathed in to help breath out the negativity building inside.

Thinking of my dog that recently died, I conjured the sympathy tears, “Help me please.” 

He gave in just a little, “Look see, if you want to reach Middle Age; you have start back at the beginning.”

“What? Where? How?”

“The track is a circle. You know the circle of life, right? You stay on board, and you’ll be reborn, but you must sign a contract.” 

“A ‘promise I won’t sue’ type of contract?”

“No. A promise to be a better person.”

He reached for the silver fob watch, rubbed its glass face with his thumb and said, “The choice is yours, make it in three minutes.” 

I had 180 seconds to decide whether to begin my life all over again. I started life as an oxygen depleted newborn, then nearly drowned in a dam. I spent my school years overcoming fear and bumbling my way through embarrassing teenage torment. In my twenties, I was riddled with indecisiveness, self-doubt and low self-esteem. By the time I was thirty, I’d merry-go-rounded in enough relationships to be cynical, emotionally cold, impatient and a master of self-preservation. I was the fish that swam in the opposite direction.

100 seconds, 100 breaths. Exaggerated images and emotions competed with the conductor’s logic. I wondered if rebirthing would be like a reincarnation, a choice to be cat or dolphin. Massaging my eyelids wasn’t helping to bring my decision into focus nor pinching the bridge of my nose. With ten seconds left, a Mark Twain quote came to mind.

“The two most important days of your life are the day you were born and the day you found out why”.

A second chance to find out why I exist perhaps. Find my true purpose in life, love and forgive myself. Otherwise, my last days will be spent sunken between the arm rests of a brown recliner, soft food on my lap watching reruns of I love Lucy. 

I nodded to the conductor, “I’m ready to reconcile, apologise and repent. Where do I sign?”

A screech of metal on metal was heard on the outside of the window and the carriage jolted forward.