This is wrong. I know as soon as the doors close behind me, I’m on the wrong train.
Usually, I don’t need to think about which train I’m boarding. Usually, only the C train stops here. The MTA is also usually messing around with the routes and schedules, so I decide not to worry. I shake out my umbrella and lean against the doors as we screech along the tracks, thinking about the next station to transfer. When I look for the light board, there’s nothing there. The maps, too, are missing beside the doors, and all the advertising panels are stuffed full with those leaflets for oracles and tarot readers. The fluorescent lights above us flicker twice and we tumble along the tracks.
The rest of the train looks more or less normal. It’s an older model, but just as dirty and worn in as you’d expect. The plastic yellow and orange seats are sparsely occupied with passengers. A woman in an ill-fitting pencil skirt and polyester blouse with smudged lipstick. An elderly man with arthritic hands over his lap and a paperboy cap on his knee. A guy in his mid-forties with Chelsea boots and a sports jacket stood at a center pole. A twenty-something girl anxiously glancing up from the novel in her lap. A teenager asleep against the handrail, his disheveled backpack half-zipped on the seat beside him. A woman in a spandex workout set listening to music on her headphones. A mother with tired eyes holding a sleeping baby. The anonymous company calms me. We all came from somewhere, are going somewhere. There’s an open seat across from the girl reading and I take it.
I pull my phone from my bag and open the map, but the navigation glitches. No service, but it was worth a try. Just then a voice comes on over the intercom, clearer than I’ve ever heard it. “We’ll get you where you need to go.”
The woman in workout gear removes her headphones and looks around. The old man tightens his grip on his cap. The baby stirs but does not wake.
I lean toward the aisle and ask the girl with the book, “Sorry, do you know what train this is? I got on at the Kingston Ave stop, but I guess this is a reroute.”
She glances up and her eyes are frightened. Maybe it’s the book, but then she says, “I got on at the Marcy station…”
“The M?”
“I thought so.” I notice the book leaves quivering in her hands.
“But those lines don’t connect.”
“I know.”
“So we….” My mind is racing. I’ve lived in Brooklyn for eight years and I’ve seen my fair share of subway screw-ups. I’m not about to act like a tourist in Times Square. “We just get off at the next stop and find a normal train. They really should have posted alerts, this is so annoying.” I try to keep my tone casual, cool. The guy in the Chelsea boots is listening to our conversation.
“We can’t,” the girl replies. I think she might cry. She must be new here.
“What?”
“She said we can’t get off. She’s right.” It’s the guy speaking up and he walks over to sit on the bench beside me, elbows on his knees. “I thought this was the B, at Prospect Park. Brian, by the way.” I give my name, and the girl introduces herself as Alice. “There’s something weird going on. I’ve been on this train for over an hour. Folks get on, the door closes before you can exit. When they get off, it’s at very particular stops.”
I make eye contact with the old man and he gives me the slightest nod. As if on cue, the intercom sounds. “Wynwood Daycare Center.” We’ve slowed to a stop and everyone looks around. The teenager rouses awake and slings his backpack over both shoulders. The doors remain shut. “This is Wynwood Daycare Center.” The kid looks startled, and stands on his over-large feet. Shakily, he moves toward the exit and the doors part for him. Once he’s outside, they shut immediately. His worried face slides out of the window frame as we race away.
“What the — ”
“It’s been like this all night,” says Brian. “People get on, unaware. They get off in…specific places. Strange places.”
“And we can’t get off?”
“Give it a try on the next stop.”
“I tried,” says Alice. “It wouldn’t let me.”
“Yeah,” says Brian, “I saw. I tried too.”
We’re quiet for a while, looking at each other, looking at our shoes, listening to the train rattle along like a tin can in a gutter. The windows show us a dark network of old New York infrastructure, soot covered pipes and wires along a dimly lit tunnel weaving beneath the city.
Finally, we pull into a station I recognize. Jay Street Metrotech in Downtown Brooklyn. My pulse quickens against my chest and I look at Alice, who has given up on her book and is glancing nervously at the doors. Brian nods and says, “Now’s your chance. Maybe you’ll have better luck than we did.” I stand and approach the doors, my nose nearly pressed against the center waiting for them to part. Out the window, I see a packed station of people waiting to go home from work, go out on dates, go meet friends — all waiting for the next thing. They don’t look back at me. None of them, in fact, seems to be looking at our train groaning to a stop before them. It’s like they don’t notice at all.
The intercom is silent, but I hear the two tones signaling doors opening. Not mine though, only the doors on the far end of the car part. I sprint down the aisle to reach it as a college-age girl stumbles on in a cheap party dress and chunky heels. She’s the only one who boards, and I almost knock her over in my attempt to leap out onto the platform. I hear her timid “sorry” in my ear as my shoulder slams against the doors, which closed rapidly behind her. I’m still trapped, and now she is too. The girl teeters to a seat and I return to mine. Alice looks more terrified than ever, Brian wears a humorless smile. The old man regards me solemnly.
“What is this?”
“I couldn’t tell you,” Brian replies.
“Is it a marketing stunt? Has the train been hijacked?”
Alice’s voice is shaky when she says, “I thought of those things, too. I don’t think that’s what this is. I think this is something else.”
The old man clears his throat and we three look up. “He told you what this is. On the intercom. Did you listen?” We’re all stunned silent. “He said we’re going where we need to go.”
“What does that mean?” Alice has tears welling in her eyes as she asks.
“I can’t be sure,” replies the man, “but I think I know the meaning.” He has a slow, deliberate way of talking, like each word costs him something to speak. Whether he’s pausing for dramatic effect or just thinking, I can’t tell.
“What do you think this is?” It’s the mother who says this. She almost whispers so not to wake the baby, but somehow her voice carries through the rattling car.
“Each life,” he begins after a time, “no matter how full, has a few moments with the magnitude to fundamentally change a soul. Past, future,” he glances at me, “present, maybe. The course we take will change everything. Often without realizing, we leave…a version of ourselves in that place. A living ghost. I think that is where we are going.”
“We’re time traveling?” asks Brian.
“Ghosts?” Alice whimpers.
“Not necessarily. We’re going exactly where we need. To meet our shadows. This city is full of them.” The old man nods, as though this is the clear truth.
“Have you,” I begin cautiously, “been on this train before?”
He chuckles a bit to himself. “No, but I’ve lived a long time.” Slowly, he meets each of our eyes. “I’ve left a few shadows.”
“Do you know where you’re going?” Only after I’ve said it do I realize it’s quite a personal question. The old man is quiet for a while, with a far off look.
Eventually, he answers, “I can hope.” He smiles at me with damp eyes.
“We’re slowing down again,” interrupts Brian. The mother holds her baby close to her chest. The woman in workout clothes bounces on her toes. Sunlight breaks through the windows and startles me with its warmth.
The intercom sounds over the screeching brakes. “1113 Albemarle Road.”
Alice stops fidgeting and goes completely still.
“Is it you?” Brian gently places a hand on her shoulder. This snaps Alice from her trance and she looks to him, then to me.
“This is 1113 Albemarle Road,” the announcer repeats.
“Where is it, Alice?”
“It’s….” she replaces the strap of her tote bag on her shoulder, “It’s my mother’s house.” She doesn’t stand. “We haven’t…in…”
“This is 1113 Albemarle Road,” sounds the intercom again.
The old man leans forward, “It’s time to go, dear.”
“I can’t.” Tears are rolling down Alice’s cheeks now.
“You can,” he tells her. His smile feels warmer than the sunlight. “You will be okay.”
Alice nods at him once and wipes her tears away. She rises nervously and walks toward the nearest door. It opens for her. I hear her exhale before she steps out into the day. She turns to the window as we roll away. The old man raises a hand in goodbye, then she is gone.
Silence and darkness falls over us again, and I know what we’re all thinking about. Time passes on the train. The woman in office clothes leaves, then the girl in sportswear jogs off. A homeless man staggers on and lays down on an open bench. At some point, the baby wakes and begins crying in its mothers arms. She rocks and coos her. The sound soothes me too.
“How old is she?” I ask the mother.
“Eight months.”
“She’s precious,” says the old man, and the mother smiles.
“She certainly is,” she agrees. “You’re precious, Simone,” she repeats to the baby. Simone coughs and grins.
The intercom announcer suddenly sounds; I didn’t notice the movement slowed.
“Where is this? Who is this?” We look around. Nobody seemed to recognize the name Coulter Hall. Not until we saw the college girl at the end of the train, the blood drained from her face and her eyes wild. In her heels and party dress, she suddenly looked like a child playing dress up. She’s not moving so I walk over and sit beside her.
“Is it your stop?” I ask.
She’s shaking. “Yeah, I think so.” The intercom announcer repeated himself, confirming.
“Is this a dorm?” The girl nods, and I think I understand. “Bad?” She nods again.
“I don’t want to go,” she tells me. I just nod this time. I know what she means. My body knows what she means. The announcement repeats.
Brian walks over, “Hey there, is this your stop?” The girl glances up at him once, then down at her feet. “Look, kiddo. Nobody wants to be here tonight, but if it’s your stop you’re gonna have to go ahead.” Brian looks at me impatiently and I don’t move. The window is pitch dark, with the faintest light illuminating rungs of a ladder which must lead up to a manhole outside the dorm.
With the third announcement, the mother walks over. The girl smiles briefly at Simone as they sit down together, then looks back down at her shoes. “Hey, baby,” the mother says. “You scared to get off the train?”
The college girl keeps quiet, but looks up just enough to stare at the baby in its mothers arms.
“Maybe you don’t have to,” the mother says after a beat, making eye contact with me and nodding. “Maybe you stay right here then and we just move along.” The announcer answers with a fourth reminder.
“Kid, get off the train.” Brian’s voice has lost its softness. He sounds like a teacher reprimanding a tardy student. “You don’t leave, none of us leave. I don’t want to be a dick here, but it’s really selfish of you to hold us up. Look at that baby — don’t you want that baby to get home?” The mother presses her lips into a line and shoots him a glare but says nothing. “I’m sure she’s got somewhere to be, some shadow to see,” he waves his hand over at me. “I’ve got a life to get onto. The old man has unfinished business. Let’s fucking go.” He tries to grab at her wrist and she screams. The announcer joins in, Coulter Hall followed by the repeating two tones of doors opening. No doors open, though, just the noise over and over as the girl starts to cry and Brian keeps shouting.
She’s screaming through her sobs “I can’t go back there, don’t make me go back there. Help me!”
Brian successfully grabs her wrists this time and forces her to standing. He’s saying to me, “You gonna help me out?” while the girl cries and struggles. Simone starts crying and struggling in her mothers arms. I’m the only one in this moment who can intervene. And I do nothing.
“Help me! Don’t make me go there! No! No! Please! No!” I watch the trust leave her eyes and the red swell over her face as he drags her kicking to the door. It opens briefly and he pushes her out. The doors close around her, but I can still hear her wails from the other side.
I wonder as we pull away, of the place I’m approaching. I wonder if I’m ever on this dreaded train again, will I return here. I’ve left my shadow with the girl in that dark stop. We carry on.
