Life rushes past like the view from a moving train—everything momentary, everything slipping away before we can grasp it. The world outside flies by. Innumerable trees, indistinguishable from one another, melt together into a cold blur of leaves and branches. Whatever you see is only a fleeting glimpse—passing by and immediately out of sight. The present is only now. This now is already in the past, replaced by a different now, as new and ineffable sights appear, only to vanish just as quickly. Each moment vanishes into the next, and attempting to hold on to it is futile—a vain attempt to capture something that disappears before you can even think about it.
What happens to all the things once they are out of sight? They still exist, but not for you. They appear and disappear just the same for the passengers behind you—infinitely seen, witnessed by innumerable eyes, yet destined to remain fleeting memories, already far gone even now. A blurry image of the past is all that’s left, all you can hope to hold on to.
At other times, small drops of water falling and dripping down the cold, clear glass obscure the view, and you can barely distinguish anything through the mist pervading the world. Things far away seem to barely exist—only a vague shadow, a blurred contour remains visible through the fog. The whole world then appears in black and white. Everything either exists, in front of you, or it doesn’t.
Just as the world outside is impossible to hold on to, so too are the stories we tell each other within these walls. We watch, we speculate, but no one truly knows what lies ahead—or behind.
The people in this car seem uninterested in the sights outside either way. Two long rows of seats, arranged in groups of four, reveal faces of all kinds and expressions. You know quite a few of them by sight, though you’ve never spoken to many. The people who sit closest to you are, of course, the most familiar. It’s almost impossible not to get to know them, after a while.
It’s hard to say what lies beyond the doors. It happens, though only occasionally, that a passenger stands up abruptly, collecting their belongings—a coat, a purse, a briefcase. They say a few words to the people beside them, then walk towards one of the two doors on either side of the car. Sometimes they linger a moment, looking left and right, as though still deciding which door to walk through. Whatever their decision, the reason behind it is unknown to the rest of us. None of those who have left have ever returned, so it’s hard to say what they found on the other side. Those who remain are left only with theories, as each departure is a mystery.
Just as some leave, at times, new passengers arrive. They look around for an empty seat, offering vague, awkward smiles as they walk through the aisle. In these situations, you lean to the side, stretching your neck in an attempt to see them, to hear what they have to say about the place they come from. They always say something vague—“two cars down”—gesturing towards one of the doors, and their new neighbors nod as if this explanation makes things clearer. For a time, the arrival or departure of a passenger becomes all anyone can think or talk about—new faces bring new stories, but how much can we trust them?
Those farther from the new arrival must rely on second-hand news, passed down from seat to seat, with no way of knowing whether the retelling of the story is truthful—or perhaps embellished, altered, distorted to make it more interesting. No way of knowing whether the original story was true in the first place. Regardless of how close you are to someone, regardless of how much you think you know and trust the people who have sat next to you for as long as you can remember, we all remain strangers on this train, each with their own motives and thoughts about how the world works, what’s right and what’s wrong.
What if this stranger had been banished from their car somehow? What if they weren’t even from the car they claimed to be from?
Perhaps this is why so few of us ever stand up and leave. The uncertainty is impossible to overcome for most. What if nothing exists beyond these doors at all? What if those who have left never returned because they were swallowed up by nothingness as soon as they stepped over that line? What if there is no way to change your mind and come back? And what if the people who arrive are not really who—or what—they say they are? What if they’re something else entirely, sent from…well, that’s hard to say, or even to imagine. What is there, after all, other than this? Regardless, they come from somewhere.
It’s hard to say anything for certain here, and in the absence of certainty, stories and theories multiply and spread throughout the car.
Everyone has their own story regarding what there is—or isn’t—on the other side of the doors, outside this train, about the people who come and those who leave. We are all left to wonder, though mostly, we try not to think about it and go on with our lives. The more questions you ask yourself, the more unsatisfied you are destined to be, some say. Any question only brings new questions, never a definitive, certain, or clear answer. Stories and theories are exchanged, passed down from passenger to passenger, and any question you ask will always be met with a different answer.
The truth is, there’s probably little point in asking questions to people who are in exactly the same position as you are. Whether they act like it or not, they know no more than anyone else. And yet, we continue to wonder, to ask, and to try to come up with reasons and plausible explanations—because we simply can’t help ourselves. No one can sit in silence forever. Without a reason for it all, without a story to hold on to, what stops us from losing ourselves completely?
Some say the train has no beginning and no end, that it never started moving, that it simply is, and that it will never stop. In other words, the train is not headed anywhere, and there is no hope of finding out why we’re here or where we’re going. Some argue that if the train is infinitely long, it makes no difference whether it is moving or standing still. Others say that it is moving, but in circles—so wondering about our destination is pointless either way.
Others believe that, though incredibly long, the train does have a beginning and an end—that it departed long ago, so far back that no one remembers when, and that one day, it will stop somewhere. Occasionally, one even hears stories about someone—considered either a genius or a fool—who left their car intending to walk until they reached the end—or the beginning?—of the train. Though of course even this story has countless versions. Some say that this person made it to the end, but it was such a beautiful or peaceful place that they decided not to return. Others claim that, upon exiting, they remained stuck somehow—between the train and…whatever lies outside. Still others say instead this person is still walking toward the end, or perhaps on the way back to tell us what they found.
It’s rare to find even two people who share the same belief, or that agree on anything. Occasional, an argument sparks, sometimes even inciting someone to leave—just to prove their point (though no one has proven anything yet). Some people find it unbearable to consider ideas that contradict their own, as though the only thing making this train ride bearable is the reassurance that something—or nothing, depending on the point of view—exists beyond it. The idea that they could be wrong, that someone disagrees with them, is unsettling, impossible to accept.
Yet all theories are equal. Each speculation is as valid as the next. They are all wrong and correct at the same time, because nothing can be verified or proven. And no matter how strong the urge, or how important the matter seems, very few are willing to rise from their seats and leave in search of the truth. In spite of the fact that everyone holds on to their own theories and beliefs so dearly, the tiniest flicker of doubt holds them back from pursuing it.
Perhaps people choose their beliefs simply based on which is the most reassuring, the most comforting. Maybe it is better to assume you are right rather than to risk discovering that you were wrong. What would you do then, if everything you believed in—the foundation your life—were to crumble before you?
Mostly, we try not to think about it. We sit, looking out the window, speculating, believing. Some cling to their stories, convinced they know where the train is going. Others let go, surrendering to the movement itself. But in the end, the train keeps moving, indifferent to what we think of it.
So many of us, bound together by some invisible force—or by nothing at all—coinciding in this moment, bringing us all here, us and not others. Tied together by our equal fate—regardless of what it may be—we remain waiting for something we cannot see.
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