“Don’t worry,” Raya assured her. “Everything will be clearer after your orientation. But first, I’ll need to see your ticket.”
“What ticket?” the other Raya said without noticing the rectangular piece of stiff black paper sticking out from her tote.
“You may want to check your bag,” Raya suggested.
Her other self glanced down at the paper.
“May I?” Raya took the ticket from her. She had come to realize that inspecting tickets was merely a formality, having yet to meet a passenger who presented a fake ticket or one with the wrong date. Her eyes flitted over Other Raya’s ticket.
The Elsewhere Express. Check.
Eternal knot logo. Check.
The passenger’s name was missing. Other words took its place. Raya knitted her brows, forcing herself to reread the next lines slowly.
HERE
An Exhibit
By Q Chen Philips Jr.
Raya’s other self plucked a similar piece of black paper sticking out from a purple notebook in her overstuffed tote. “Or are you looking for this?”
“Where did you get this?” Raya’s fingers trembled over the invitation to Q’s exhibit.
“They were handing them out at the subway. It’s for some kind of art event or exhibit.”
“Who gave it to you?” Raya demanded.
“I don’t know. Who cares? It’s your turn to answer my questions now. Who are you and where the hell am I?”
Incense scented Raya’s compartment with white sage and told the story of a fight between the sky and sea and the kite that had causedit. Raya did not care who won. She wasn’t listening. She lay on the floor, pinned beneath words printed in gold ink. The invitation pushed down on her chest and emptied her lungs. Raya sat up, letting the invitation slip to the floor. She snatched it up and reread the fine print on its back, hoping that this time around, it would make sense.
Raya.
On the count of three.
Jump.
Six Weeks or Six Months or Six Years* Ago
*Maybe Sixty
Q
There is a quiet clarity that only a fall from a train can provide. Death makes all other thoughts seem small. It shoves them out the door like a bar at closing time, shuts the windows, draws the blinds, and when your mind is empty, sits with you in silence. Q welcomed its company. He did not want to die alone.
Q could not think of anything to say to Death. Speaking required him to think, and thoughts, this close to the end, were dangerous. Doubt did not just shatter trains. It broke a person’s will too. Q needed to keep his will intact until he slammed into a boulder or the ground. If it cracked, even just a little, he would scream, and Q could not tell if he had fallen far enough to be out of Raya’s earshot. He did not wish for her to hear his fear.
Q did not have time to find the courage he needed to throw himself off the train. All he had were a stowaway’s secrets to weigh him down. Each moth he had touched when he thrust his arm through the stowaway’s chest had been a thought filled with Lily’s guilt and told him the story of all the other times he and Raya had boarded the Elsewhere Express. He had not brought the stowaway on board, but if he jumped, he hoped he could take it with him. He clung tothe stowaway’s truth, needing to believe, up to his last moment, that what he had done to keep the train and Raya safe had worked.
Q landed on his feet, his eyes shut, wondering if he was alive or in hell. He kept his eyes closed, refusing to shed a tear for something he did not regret. A strong wind whipped his coat and hair, carrying the roar of an approaching train. The broken walking stick in his hands told him where and when he was. This was the night he had boarded the Elsewhere Express, the night he would get his sight back and meet a woman with lavender hair. All he had to do was step away from the platform and board his train when it came to a stop. Q turned and walked away from his latest second chance. The only way he could keep the Elsewhere Express safe was by never boarding it and awakening Lily’s guilt again.
Live. Breathe. Be.
From a Song by Hiraya Sia
Raya
