Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

The Lost Train That NeverWas
by Ally Berry

There is place, a separate world that few know of. It lies underground some miles north of a lonely town in South Dakota. My arrival there occurred by mere chance; but the message read deep within that abandoned tunnel rang loud and clear and forever cemented itself inside my heart.
I knew at once that this station had long since been abandoned. Fragments of rock peeled like brittle leaves from the brick walls, littering the empty pathways running parallel to the rusting train tracks. The air was heavy with decay; a scent I’m unnerved to find recognizable. As I walked, my footsteps stirred up small clouds of golden dust. I noticed that despite being so far below the surface, the air was very dry. Just a few deep breaths, and it felt like I was inhaling sharp bits of sawdust. The sensation was very unpleasant.
Briefly I considered leaving, but by the invitation of some invisible, unknown tug, I began to slowly work my way further down the empty tunnel, trailing along side the iron tracks. Beneath me, the muted echo of my steps followed me like a quiet stranger, as tentative and curious as my own. Alarmed by the loudness of my steps, I looked down, only to stop and stare at the metal net of bars crisscrossing their way over the path I strode upon. It was a grill of some sort, placed over a multicolored bed of small rocks. As I progressed further down the endless tunnel, the thin bars rattled quietly in protest under my small weight.
A neverending row of lights adorned the left wall of the tunnel; bright and hopeful in contrast to the surrounding corrosion that filled the area. Not a ball of light flickered on the edge of life. Each shining orb seemed to emit a permemnant glow, unhindered by the passage of time. I watched as the dancing lights filtered through the dusty air, shimmering like specks of gold in the noon sun. Its was as though a spell were being cast over me, permentantly entwining my fate with that of this underground tomb.
Stray beams of light fell upon the panel of wall nearest to me, drawing my attention to three words, scralwed boldly in white paint, harshly contrasting the darkness of the stone. It read, “WHO ARE WE?” The implications of the question shocked me, freezing my feet in their steady advancement. We? I asked quietly. You, the words seemed to whisper back, direct as the path of a thrown dagger. I felt myself stagger backwards, almost tripping over the bar of iron that was part of the train tracks.
Me?
I reflected on the sharp emptiness of this realm. There was a loneliness there thick with neglect. So many tangible memories remained in the tunnel like ghosts in an abandoned graveyard. Where was the giant bulk of an electric train, vibrating with the force of its working engines like the ferver and eagerness of a imaptiant race horse? Where were the people? Surely the walkway I moved across had once been overwhelmed by the press of a hundred heavy feet. At some point this train station must have been in use, relied upon by thousands to get to a distant destination needed to be reached.
At those thoughts sadnness enveloped my wounded heart. It was an ache I had thought I to have overcome long ago, one that I had hoped might never ressurface. But the underground tunnel radiated much of the same feelings I had felt then. Isolation. Despair. A desperate longing for how things once were; how life should return to be.
Ahead of me a mysterious breeze wailed forth from the once quiet depths, soft and mournful like the solitary trill of baby bird lost without its mother. Inside my heart, a chord was struck, and memories as vivid as if they had occurred yesterday, flooded my waking vision. I trembled; I quaked; shaking with the sheer force of remembering.
That passage housed the same bitter recollections, the exact solitary confinement. Pains that can only be felt when something precious is lost. In the case of the station, the missing train and the people who once rode it. For me, it was none other than the haunting death of my mother ten years ago.
To this day it is a loss I have not been able to forgive. She was much more than a mother, but a best friend whom I cared for deeply. In a way I lived for my mother in much the same way this station existed for its people. For all she had done to raise and provide me with the things I needed in life, I had always felt this persisting repsonsibility to return the favor, and help her achieve what it was she never could. I knew no better way to live, than to live for her, my creator. A train station serves a similar purpose; helping those who have need get to where they need to be, in return for being built and made part of this world.
When I lost my best friend, an emptiness carved it’s way into my heart. Even now, it is a void and discarded as the cold crypt I once stood within. Death removed my purpose for living, and since then I have been nothing more than a zombie, empty of the drive and passion that would see me happy. I saw myself mirrored in that silent mausoleum, for surely the walls weeped and the floors creaked at the loss of the company that had once graced its noble hall.
That is what I have become; that is the grave I have dug and buried myself deep within. What lightness may have remained, was cut off when I gave up on the illumination of living. And yet as I stared at the pearly lamps above me that continued their tireless glow, I wondered. I began to question my loneliness and that of this place. My broken heart dared to snatch at a spark of flickering hope.
I’m not as alone as I believe. And as selfishly as I want to cling to the idea that I’m the only one hurting, I’ve seen within that crumbling pit, that it couldn’t be any further from the truth. Everyone and everything can lose something precious and be crippled by that damage. I know that now. The loneliness we undergo in this world of love and hurt is what pulls all of life closer together through a rainbowed web of connection. It’s in places like the train tunnel, that people may listen, and hear a message that needs to be heard.
My gaze darted back to the writing on the wall, then to the bed of white rocks lying amidst the jumbled train tracks. I chose one of the jagged stones at random and returned to the rough interior of the tunnel. Below the large, bold letters of the question that had opened my soul, I wrote my answer with clear, confident strokes.
Some time later I appeared above ground, surfacing to find the world unchanged but noticebly new. I know that although my coming there had been chance, I will never forget the words whispered to me by that deserted space.
Who are we?
A soft smile had then spread its way across my glowing face.
Not alone…