Chapter 10: Next Stop, The Complex City

The next stop was a hidden city, a rather big, dark, and cruel place, built entirely underground. There was no sun to be found, only a void, subterranean and endless. Some said it was nothing but a fictional story, while others described it as a complex city, nested deep in the depths of a hollow and filled with secrets, ghosts, and shadows.

When Bob looked out of the window, he noticed a tiny circle, glimmering faintly in the middle of the city. He tilted his head, squinted, and murmured, “Whoa, it’s still buffering!” Then he picked up the telescope, mounted it on his shoulder, and observed it closely. It was his first time in Hades.

Soon after, the cat smiled through his whiskers and whispered softly, “this doesn’t look like Hades … it’s a guilt-trip.” With a flick of his tail and a gentle note of reassurance, to no one in particular. Bob grabbed his black hat, tipped it once to the unseen city below, and climbed up to the roof of the train to find better reception on the rooftop.

Good morning beloved drifters of Dimension Eleven!

We have a little delay!

This is your Conductor speaking: We’re currently experiencing a little turbulence as we approach Hades.

Please find your seatbelts, adjust your metaphysical expectations, and do not despair. We are simply picking up passengers here.

No departure! I repeat: no departure, Bob!

You’re exactly where (and when) you need to be.

And now … tune into Radio Doom and Gloom:

Hey, we’re on here again, cherished passengers of Train to Elsewhere! It’s your beloved host Marcus again. I have a rhetorical question: where else would you rather be? It’s Faraday, and the sun has decided not to show up (again). We’ve got Diotima on line 9 calling in from the Lake of Unlikely Events, says she’s seen a reflection that isn’t hers. Says it blinked twice. Coffee’s cold. Reality’s warping just enough to feel like déjà vu, but the kind you get before something unlikely is likely to happen.

Stick around, because coming up next, Elsewhere’s top rated band, the Buffering Souls, will be performing the song: Train to Elsewhere, live from the Lake of Unlikely Events. This one is for those who still remember dreams, but have forgotten their meaning, at the point of intersection between myth and history:

It’s the Train to Elsewhere,

between two worlds:

the Land of Nowhere

and the Land of Not Yet.

I’m gliding on the rails that disappear

behind your unfinished thoughts.

The land ahead?

Neither promised, nor forgotten,

just shimmering, just shimmering,

in the dim light of maybe.

I’m tucked between a sigh

and a second guess.

No map, no timetable here.

Only the rhythm of

something old and ancient.

I’m guiding the wheels backward

with the patience of a stone

and the madness of Mad Hatter.

Where is Alice?

And who am I?

The one holding the lantern?

The one holding the lantern.

The voice on the intercom?

Asleep at the controls?

Or just another passenger

with a pocket full of broken clocks?

I could be any of them.

Or I could be you. Or none.

But don’t worry,

you’re here, too.

Ticket or not.

Some sit quietly,

others rearrange their regrets

into luggage.

A few scribble poems

onto fogged windows,

hoping someone will read them

from the outside.

There’s a child

drawing constellations

in spilled tea.

Someone broke her heart maybe.

A frog wearing glasses

is trying to file a complaint.

And Bearton is mumbling something

about courage being allergic to logic.

The lightning still strikes in threes.

The bees hum lullabies in minor keys.

And Bob the Cat?

He’s just found a map

that might be a mirror.

The track coils downward.

We are spiraling.

We are spiraling,

like a thought

too heavy to think at once.

So, buckle up, buckle up,

adjust your reality filters,

and hold someone’s hand

if they let you.

Because the next stop

might be the dream

you forgot to wake from.