sometimes the train doesn't come

I held my watch close to my face, pressing a button on the side, making the numbers glow a bright blue. I had to squint in the dimness of the train station to make out the dials.

6:17

I knew from riding the subway for most of my life that if the train didn't pull into the station by 6:20 that morning, it wasn't coming at all. And there was never an explanation why. At least nothing as workaday as maintenance or extreme weather conditions. When we were younger, Bonnie and I used to make up silly excuses for the train's disappearance. Maybe some of the tracks had turned into green Jell-O. Maybe a herd of giant pink lions were blocking the way. Maybe the train was tired, and doesn't everyone deserve a day off? Of course, there was only one real explanation given for the irregular train behavior.

Sometimes the train doesn't come because this is Knoxford. This is a town where the rats are radioactive, and the internet never works. This is a place where the woods are filled with monsters, and the sun never rises. And things are just...weird here.

I took out my headphones and sat down on the bench against the wall. The station was empty today. Filled only by the sound of crickets chirping. Sometimes I liked to listen to them in the mornings, when I was too tired to concentrate on anything else. I was wide awake that morning though. I kept subconsciously wiping my ink-stained sweaty hands on my skirt, smearing parts of my speech all over my uniform.

Sucking in a deep breath, I tried to calm myself. I looped the headphones around my neck and ejected the old cassette from my Walkman. In the darkness, it took a few minutes to fish around my backpack for the next tape, finally finding it lodged in my math textbook. I squinted down at the tape, trying to make out the inscription.

The Starcross Chronicles: Book Four: Rewind: part 6

I had to fumble around with the Walkman before finally snapping the cassette in place. I put on my headphones, and pressed play.

It was quiet, here in the desert. The wind had stopped, and the red sand had fallen still. The drone of desert beetles had vanished with the cries of taligons and blemmyae. The only sound that disrupted the encompassing silence, was Azar's muffled footsteps. Each sounded fainter and weaker than the last. Here in the silence and solitude of the desert, she was finding it harder to believe she could make it out alive.

Deserts on Domino were as numerous as the stars. Some as small as tropical islets, and others made the Sahara look like a sandbox. As far as Azar was concerned, she was stranded in a desert as large as a galaxy. Red dunes stretched out infinitely in every direction, giving the maddening illusion that any progress she made was nonexistent. Clearing ten dunes only to find twenty more waiting on the other side.

Sometimes amid her frustration, she thought of her crew. Of how much she missed them. Wondering how many of them were still alive. She thought of her ship, the Idrisi, wondering who commanded it now. She thought of anything to distract her from the pain of her limbs, from the exhaustion of her body.

But when things turned for the worse, and when she hadn't the strength to go on. She thought of everything she should've done. The words she should've said. The things she should've let herself feel. And she thought of everything she was going to do. Everything she promised herself she would say.

When she saw her again.

The train finally pulled into the station at 6:20; I stepped into the empty train car and sat down in one of the seats, staring out the window and listening to the audiobook as the train lights flickered.

on.off.on...off....on.off.on.off.on...off....on...off.on....off.on.off....on.off.on.off.on...off....

The train lights flicked off, and I noticed out the window the night sky once lit with moonlight and thousands of stars, was now dark. Too dark. I pressed my nose close to the glass trying to make out where the pseudohorizon met the flatlands. But all that was there was an endless black void. Fear settled over my chest. I turned up the volume on my Walkman.

on.off.on...off....on.off.on.off.on...off....on...off.on....off.on.off....on.off.on.off.on...off....

Within minutes, the stars and moonlight reappeared, and my thoughts returned to my audiobook, and worries about my speech I'd be giving a few hours later. If I'd lived anywhere else in America, I would've been more concerned about the stars disappearing and reappearing in the sky.

But this is Knoxford, and the rules of reality do not apply here.