The train car is tense.
The people in the rows fairly sparkle with quiet nervousness. They don’t look at each other. Everyone is traveling alone, clutching a bag or a box to hide their shivering. The ones who were lucky enough to get seated near the windows stare through them, as if something outside will heal their haunted gazes.
The train glides to another stop. Soft shades of gray light, reflected from the silent urban landscape, filter into the car. The passengers wait patiently—they’ve waited their entire lives; another few minutes doesn’t matter—for another person, twisted into himself, eyes fixed on the floor, to board.
Instead, an old man shuffles in, his spine straight, in a knitted red poncho and paint-splattered boots, colors that are too bright against the gray world. The old man straightens his poncho and marches to the back of the car, placing himself in a seat next to a woman who shrinks against her seat.
The train begins moving again. The old man fidgets in his seat, gingerly adjusting his too-small poncho. He glances at the woman beside him and the hood covering her head, the gray scarves wrapped around her waist. She refuses to look at him, fixing her eyes on the expanse of gray architecture outside. There is not a single person in sight.
“It’s such a lovely feeling riding this train, isn’t it? So smooth, and quiet. A lot of time to reflect, I’m guessing?” The old man chuckles. The woman tightens her grip on the cardboard box in her hands and continues looking away.
“A lot of time to reflect…,” he repeats. He adds under his breath, “Not like everyone here hasn’t already done a lot of that. Not an easy decision to make, huh?”
He throws back his head and laughs, stringy gray hair falling out from under his cap. The woman jerks her head, her eyes wide and quivering. The other passengers startle in their seats, searching for the source of the foreign sound. When their eyes land on him, they freeze in their positions and stare like children. The old man continues laughing, eyes squeezed shut. His cackles echo in the train car. Finally, they die down to gasps, and he mutters, “That’s the understatement of the era.”
He settles down, crossing his arms under his poncho, giggling from time to time. The rest of the passengers return to their silent pondering. The woman, unblinkingly staring out her window, almost forgets that he’s next to her. Her mind continues racing through all the things she’s going to do once she reaches her destination—their destination, really, because all of the people here are going to the same place. She tries to find the most efficient way to say all the things she needs to say so that her words will still convey the same meaning but so she can say them in time. The
irony of the situation is not lost on her. She has been given the sacred gift of more time but is limited to mere minutes of it. No, given is not the right term, she decides. That makes it seem like this is a charity. It’s a bargain, a negotiation, a deal, a trade.
A time later, the old man reaches into a pocket and pulls out a tattered paper, barely bigger than his thumb. His expression mirrors those of his fellow passengers. At his bitter sigh, the woman finally removes her gaze from the gray landscape. Her eyes trace the haggard desperation in his face that laughter and paint-splashed colors cannot mask. That look is the one that all of the passengers wear. If they didn’t, why else would they choose to take this ride?
The woman’s gaze falls to the paper in the old man’s hands. It’s a photo, stained beyond proper recognition, but she can make out two things: a child’s wide, pure smile and a mother’s unfaltering love.
She pauses, taking in the photo and the familiarity of the scene. The lines of her face soften. She opens the box that she holds, untying the carefully-knotted white string that secures it. The old man lifts his head, carefully tucks his picture away, and watches as the woman reveals stacks upon stacks of yellowed pictures. All of them are of family, a laughing child. She lifts one out and traces a finger on the inked curve of the baby’s chin.
The two meet each other’s gazes. That fragile way of life that they chose to bring upon themselves unites them and probably everyone else sitting in that train car. They exchange soft smiles.
It’s now that the train comes to a slow stop. The passengers all know without looking that this is the final stop; they can feel it in their burning anticipation and dread. The woman and the old man exit side-by-side, each comforted by the other’s presence. They have never spoken a word to each other, but they have made the same final decision. In moments, each of the passengers will speak with their lost ones for the first and last time. They will bend the laws of nature in return for final obedience to those laws. Only they understand why anyone would ever make the decision to get on this train. They don’t claim that their choice is right, but it’s the one they have made. Fatal “punishment” in return for bringing peace to the lost—in their eyes, it’s an honorable choice.