Chapter 1: The Cat Who Never Boarded

There are stories that begin with thunderclaps and swords, fairies and magicians, chosen ones and ancient scrolls. This is not one of those stories. This one begins with a blink, not just a single blink, but two blinks, to be precise. The first blink wasn’t from the train. I’ll tell you about the train later. It was from Bob, feline cat with black fur folded like realities in the implicate order and glimmering eyes like two golden yellow parentheses. He didn’t have boots or bootstraps, he preferred to walk barefoot—for increased mobility, as he later explained. Although he did have a black hat. But not just one. He had many hats. You see, Bob was an earnest hat collector.

On one beautiful day, although he wouldn’t like me calling it beautiful (he insisted on calling it glamorous), Bob blinked once, then again, and suddenly he was. No one saw him board the train. Not even the Conductor. Not Bearton Rogers, who had been staring philosophically into his teacup for hours on a daily basis. Not even keenly observant Ms. Understood, who sat on the train for hours with eyes closed, reading Freud with unspoken precision.

Bob simply appeared atop the velvet seat in Car 7¾ on the Train to Elsewhere, as if he had always been there and always would be. He was not surprised. Bob was rarely surprised. Time, after all, was something he had long since stopped experiencing in a straight line. So, there he was, aboard the Train to Elsewhere. But this isn’t about the train. Not yet. This begins with Bob. And the fact that he had just received a letter. It wasn’t addressed to anyone, it was postmarked tomorrow, and it read:

Dear Bob, the world is about to forget something important. Find it before it un-becomes.

There was no signature. Just a paw print, slightly smudged, and a feather pressed between the folds. Bob blinked once. Then again. Slowly. And wondered what the feather meant. Then he took a second good look at the paw print. The paw print was his own. Of course. He had written it. Or he would. Or he was in the process of writing it now or living it out. Who knows? Time was a Möbius whisker to Bob. So, he tucked his letter into his fur and adjusted his hat, which sat beside him. A soft chime echoed down the corridor. “Passengers, we are now crossing into the Inner Sanctum!” said the Conductor’s voice, and then continued: “If you feel a sensation of being witnessed by ancient compassion, do not be alarmed. That is just the light adjusting to your soul. Please remain seated.”

Bob twitched his tail. Somewhere in the distance, he felt a question forming. And somewhere in the past or future or right now, he blinked the answer back to himself. Outside, the landscape of Elsewhere unfolded, a field of sunflowers that bowed to the moon, although the moon was nowhere to be found. But the sky was there, and it swirled like forgotten thoughts in a starry night. Near the train station, a clocktower chimed in multiple tenses. The train rolled on, but not forward. It glided sideways through memory, dream, and reflection. And suddenly, Bob realized that he was traveling through a story that hadn’t been written yet. Again.