And the hum and rumble, and click and clack, and whip and whoosh form an orchestra all around me, as my body flies under the earth. Then, suddenly – the train slows to a stop, mid-tunnel. I look up and that’s when I see it…
When the train starts moving, everything outside melts over the window past me, slowly and then very quickly. A flurry of light and tile. A clunk of iron. The wheels munch on rubble-crumble. The birds outside hear a low hum under the earth. This is the secret place underground where time bends itself.
When the train starts moving, it sends vibrations up the bottoms of my feet and into my legs and I remember I have legs. It’s an odd sensation and a sort of comforting one, feeling my legs. I’d forgotten I had legs for a while. I’d forgotten I had most of my body, when I was back in the black.
When the train starts moving, I think about how I ate breakfast too quickly – a couple pieces of whole grain toast; a large mug of lukewarm tea. It got lukewarm because I let it steep for too long (typical). There goes time again, moving the heat out of my tea when I forget about it.
When the train starts moving, I look up and around and see people have face masks on. The year is 2021 and people have face masks on. The year is 2021, which makes me grateful it’s not 2017. (2021 collectively kicks rocks, but 2017 was worse. Much worse. Horrific. For me, anyway.) It’s nice to know that time is moving my body further and further away from 2017. Good thing time only moves in one direction. Time is quite reliable in that way. Predictable.
I know I just said time is predictable, but I might be wrong. Or, it’s only half-true. Time’s direction is predictable; but its pace isn’t. Its pace seems to answer to another master. For example, why did March feel so long and April so short? And May has been stop-and-go like this train I’m on. Why does time fly when we don’t want something to end? And other times, crawl so slow I could scream. Drag on so long it feels like it’s standing still, very still, having its portrait painted. If you’re lucky, time will get quiet and lag while something unutterably good is happening. This is rare.
An example: once upon a time, the year was 2011 and my chestnut eyes locked with a pair of jade ones. Everything felt like it stopped. Everything. It was a July. It was a Wednesday. It was a cool, inky kind of evening. Everything stopped moving and the stars stared down at us until they were dizzy, and Orion’s belt vibrated, and an invisible hourglass got knocked on its side. After ten years, I remember that night like it just happened last night. I think in those slowed-down moments, time pauses long enough to tattoo part of the moment to us. Almost like an apology. Almost as if to say: “I wish I could stop here longer but I can’t. I am unable to take breaks. I’m not at liberty to play favorites. But sometimes, I can drag my steps out a little, slow them down for you – like an explosion in an action-movie that lurches across the screen in slow-motion. Only for a moment. A crumb of a second. And from this crumb, you’ll make a cake; and you’ll ration it for the rest of your life so you can eat from it in all the years that follow.”
When the train starts moving, my legs become still. My arms nap in my lap. It’s 2021. It’s a May. It’s a Monday. And my past is whispering to me. It croaks out faint colors and shades of memories, it gurgles little messages. There are textures to my flashbacks. Some feel like jelly, others are jagged and sharp. Others make every organ and blood vessel in me freeze. My eyes twitch and flutter.
I am sitting in this time machine headed downtown. It glides across a different dimension. There’s no sunlight. No signs of earth outside. Just tunnels rolling through, this way and that. Me sitting with other meek, tender human bodies, dressed in so many colors, eyes to the floor, minds elsewhere and beyond. These are fellow travelers. We are all elsewhere and beyond.
With the train traveling and the faces breathing through masks and the mumbling of the tracks and my hands napping in my lap, I close my eyes and float backwards. I go anywhere I want: 2011. 1996. 2015. 2004. 1994. 2009, Last Month, inside a shiny metal tube that cruises through the dark, and I am completely swallowed up and it’s good. It’s good here. It’s good to be in the dark, where I can remember who I am; where my past and I can lock eyes, and gently, I can feel my now-10-year-old hands resting in my lap. And the hum and rumble, and click and clack, and whip and whoosh form an orchestra all around me, as my body flies under the earth.
Then, suddenly—
The train slows to a stop, mid-tunnel. I look up and that’s when I see it: through the pitch-black window, Time peers into the train car. It has crackling, obsidian eyes. Just above them, I see all the upcoming stops on the screen disappear. They are replaced with the titles of memories, hopes and fears. They are replaced with ages I used to be, names of people I’ve loved, and dreams I don’t tell anyone about. My blood runs cold. A train conductor comes over the speaker and announces: this train will be making express stops, we apologize for the delay, we should be moving momentarily. I look back at the window and it’s empty. All around me, everyone’s eyes are shut and fluttering. Everyone is elsewhere and beyond. I feel uneasy. I don’t want to be elsewhere and beyond anymore. I want to be right here. I want to be in this train car in 2021. I want to be where my body is and only where my body is. I’ve been elsewhere and beyond countless times. I’ll only be right here in this moment once. Just once.
I keep my eyes wide open. My now-adult hands feel heavy in my lap and my feet feel like bricks against the floor and I remember that I have legs and a deep breath tumbles out of my mouth.
This is when the train starts moving again. Time reappears at the window through the dark and winks at me.
