Like Trains That Pass
By: Elise Edmonds
Tags: Short Fiction, Short Story, Paranormal, Fiction, Flash Fiction

When dusk falls and the city sleeps, I awake.

The steps beckon, so I descend to the depths of the subway. I’m a night-creature: unshaven, red-eyed, and dishevelled. Fast-food bag remnants flutter past, and fresh chewing-gum adorns the stone.

I tread the cold platform; feeble lights shine off dirty tiled walls. Buzzing fluorescence permeates my consciousness, and a nearby light flickers: once, twice, then dies.

The edge calls, and I sit, dangling my legs, ignoring the petulant white line. Warm, fusty wind blows in my face from the tunnel. Fresh air that isn’t fresh. An imitation — like my life.

The hush hangs heavy, discarded fries and scattered newspaper my only companions. I squint in the sickly light, nausea building in me from that off-white glare.

A disembodied voice announces the next train. They run through the night, not caring if anyone alights. Perhaps they run for the ghosts and demons: the unseen visitors who taunt me and tell me not to move.

I can’t put the thought away. If I stay, the train will crush my legs. Pain may bring me clarity.

But I’m not ready for that yet. I want to see her one more time.

I scramble up, the clanking carriages loud in the platform’s silence. The doors grind open, and the mechanical voice above states the destination. Jumping on the empty carriage, I could be the last human being left, traversing in a world that keeps going without us.

I sit on a plastic chair. The clatter of the rails invades my thoughts, and the white noise fills my mind. Station walls turn to black tunnels, and I’m alone, in a tube, the train’s engines blanking everything else out. I sway to the rhythm, losing myself in its perpetuity.

We pull up at the next station where three lines meet. Empty platforms stare back at me, separated by tracks lying in black dips.

I press my nose to the window, hoping to catch a glimpse of her. This moment, when I am between waking and sleeping, she sometimes appears.

A train rushes in from the opposite direction. I peer forward, hands shaking as I grasp the cold metal pole.

She travels the lines, too, and we always cross paths and never meet. I wonder if she looks for me, or if her ghostly journey dooms her to retread her final moments.

The other train pulls out. My heart quickens, and I clench my fist around the pole.

There she is, standing on the edge of the platform, in glorious technicolour. She is the real one, and I am the dream. My eyes fall into long exposure, as I gaze on her yellow hair, her blue dress, her neat shoes.

I can never shake that image. It reinforces the burn in my brain. And I never want that burn to heal.

My train accelerates, and I stretch to catch a final glimpse.

When she is gone, I slump in my seat and give myself up to the white noise.

I reach the end of the line, an overground station, and sit on the cold steel bench in the grey dawn. Icy metal on the back of my legs chills my body. The empty station platform infuses me with leftover energies of those who walk its slabs daily. I do not feel anything of my own; I’m only sustained by the memories of those who have walked before.

I cannot follow her; I lack the courage. Life was untenable for us both, and she was the braver one.

The images fill my mind. How she stepped off the platform. How the oncoming train swallowed her up.

And now, she has cursed me to ride the rails for ever, not strong enough to follow her, not strong enough to walk away. Standing in that in-between land, the dusk of life, passing in the aftermath of those who truly live.

This piece was first published in The Stray Branch, Fall/Winter 2017.

Enjoy this story? Check out Homeless and Robot Nanny for more fantastical fiction.

My Young Adult Fantasy novel, Where Carpets Fly, is available on Amazon now!