Day 1
His mother asked him once, a long, long time ago, when he was obsessed with trains, which kind of train was his favorite. Supposedly, he pointed to the toy train (The Underground, its side read) lined up with the end of the tracks- not even a proper stop, just an end
boom
he ran out of pieces.
He didn't really know what he meant. He didn't even remember. But he thought he might have meant a train to nowhere.
He thought now, as he slid unseen into a very similar train, that if this real, life-sized, fully working monster was a train to nowhere, maybe he shouldn’t have bothered packing.
His mother would disagree with him, but he didn't want this to be a train to nowhere. He just wanted it to be a train, and maybe it never stopped or maybe it stopped too soon, but either way it was up to him to get off it. It was a train to anywhere. Anywhere he got off, anywhere he wanted, or at least, didn't not want.
Day 2
He jumped off at, oh, he didn't even know, just somewhere, for breakfast around 5 am. He thought maybe he shouldn’t get back on, but then he looked around and this wasn’t his anywhere.
The horn blared just as he got his foot on the train, and he jerked himself inside all the way, heart
skip
sk-skip
burnstop
with the thought that he almost got stuck here- this somewhere. He forced himself not to scramble back to his seat like a frantic dog.
He wished he hadn’t when he did finally get there, because there was someone sprawled across his row of seats.
Day 3
She should have stayed just someone, but she didn’t. He didn't even know how, but by the end of the day he’d figured out she was the most intriguing person he’d ever met, and since he was just going anywhere, it didn't make a difference if he followed her off the train.
Day 4
She wasn’t as put off by the idea of sticking together as he thought she would be- as he thought she should be, as a sixteen-or-whatever teenage girl on the streets. When he pointed this out, she laughed, loud, attracted the attention of at least eight people that were mostly guys. He felt his lip curl at them as he stepped in front of her.
“Thanks, but if you wanted to kill me, rape me, whatever, you would have done it back there,” she said, jerking her head towards the train they were walking away from. “Besides,” she grinned, cut in front of him, face-to-face, arms thrown wide. He didn't like that grin, not on her pretty face, not at all. It was vicious and cold and not at all happiness. “Hit me.”
“What?” They were standing so close his word bounced off her parted lips back at him.
“Hit me, c’mon, I dare you.” The grin was gone, but the wild spark in her eyes wasn’t. He didn't like it much better. It was not a let’s get out of here, let’s play, let’s paintgun the house spark. It was a hit me i don’t care if i die spark.
“Do it.”
He didn't.
Day 6
She decided, suddenly, after two days and two very awkward but interesting nights, that she was not sticking around. She told him straight to his face. He said he appreciated the bluntness, but not the insanity, and told her to go to sleep because it was almost midnight and they’d been getting up 3, 4, 5 am.
Day 7
It was 5:47 am when he woke up, and she was gone.
Day 8
At first, he didn't want to move because what if she came back, what if he left and she couldn’t find him?
Day 10
Lights -redblue
bluewhite
redwhite
redredwhiteblue- forced him to move.
He realized very fast that he had no idea what he was doing. She had coerced various people into various favors those first two days- beds, food, no cops.
He had never done this before, had no idea what he was doing, couldn’t get anything right.
She was still gone.
Day 11
He wanted back onto the train, his train, the train to nowhere, not just anywhere. He wondered what he was even hoping for, those days ago, weeks ago, whatever, he didn't know. If it wasn’t a train to nowhere, where the hell was he hoping to go?
Anywhere was a big fucking place.
Anywhere was more than he’d ever had before, and it was the worst thing because he didn't know what to do with himself, didn't know what he was doing here. It was not his anywhere anymore.
Day 14
He didn't know why he hoped that it wasn’t train to nowhere. His mother would have disagreed, his mother would have been right, his mother knew him too well, of course he wanted it to be a train to nowhere.
There was absolutely no reason for him to be anywhere.
Day 19
There was no such thing as a train to nowhere, he realized, when he was standing in the station for the second time in his life. There was no such thing unless he operated it himself, and he maybe wasn’t brave enough for that.
Maybe.
Day 20
It was easy enough to imagine. He could wait, oh, exactly 33 minutes, then take 7 steps forward, plus 1 that wasn’t a real step (it was the step to nowhere, in front of a train that went somewhere but could take him to his nowhere).
The train rushed by.
Maybe not.
Day 21
It was easy enough to imagine. He could wait, oh, exactly 16 minutes, then take 3 steps forward, plus 1 that wasn’t a real step (it was the step to nowhere, in front of a train that went somewhere but could take him to his nowhere).
Someone screamed.
It couldn’t be him.
Dated 2013 April 5, in memory of a boy lost to his trains. These notes are the last thing that remain of Kai J. Summers, besides his toy train, The Underground, which is a studious and strong protector of his memory and these pages.