Last Stop
Stella woke up. A sudden lurch had taken her out of her sleep.
Where was she?
“Are you all right?” someone said.
Stella looked at the voice. A man in a suit.
“Yes…” she said. “Where am I?” was her next thought that she didn’t voice.
The underground. It had to be the underground. Somehow she had fallen asleep in her daily commute and hadn’t noticed. She felt panic grab her for a second: perhaps she had overslept her stop?
But there was something wrong.
This wasn’t her line. This wasn’t her train. And it wasn’t even travelling underground. Her line had no open air tracks. What was going on? Had she, somehow, sleepwalked to a train station?
She realized the train had been braking for the last seconds and now it finally stopped. The man in the suit stood.
“My stop,” he said with a sad smile, and left.
Now, Stella thought, now I can get out and see where I am.
But she couldn’t move.
“Not your stop, young lady.” This was an old woman, sitting just in front of Stella. “You’ll know when yours arrives, I guess.”
“What?”
“It happened to me. I tried to get down in the first three stops. I suppose I’ll know when it’s my turn. It’s been happening for some time.”
Stella looked around. This was not a morning commute train. There were all kinds of people here. This old woman… she must have retired at least fifteen years ago from whatever it was she might have worked in. And yes, the man in the suit had been there, but there was a small girl over there too, and alone. She couldn’t have been more than fourteen, and she stared ahead, seeing nothing. Two young men in their twenties chatted in a low voice nearby. Another old woman, and an old man.
Now Stella realized it: most people were old. All kinds of old, but old. The young and middle aged like herself were less common.
Another stopped approached. She tried to spot the name of the station, just as the small girl stood, but she didn’t see it. The kid left without looking back, and the train left off again.
“What is this? Where are we?” she muttered.
“Oh, I think I have an idea,” the old lady said. “I’m Karen, by the way.”
“Stella.”
“Stella, do you have your ticket?”
“What?”
“Your ticket.”
“My ticket…? But I didn’t buy…” Stella patted her pockets and yes, there it was, in a pocket in her trousers. “How can this be…?” The ticket was printed on a dark paper, almost black. Somehow the word “TICKET” was clearly visible, glossy black over matt dark, but she could read no destination.
“You remember nothing, do you? Oh dear. It must have been terrible.”
“I don’t understand.”
“What’s the last thing you remember?”
“The last…? What do you mean? Why are you asking? What do you want to know?”
“I’m just trying to help. But I don’t mind. I don’t think any of us here mind.”
Point of fact, all the passengers kept mainly to themselves. The ones who had talked to each other kept doing so, but that was all. Not so strange in commuters, after all, was it?
“…but I think it could help you understand,” Karen was saying.
“I… I went to bed.”
“Alone?”
Stella went red.
“No. I was… I was with a friend.”
“A friend. Somebody else’s… friend?”
Stella nodded. Tim, Anna’s husband, who was supposed to be on a business trip. They had been having an affair for months. It wasn’t Stella’s first. She had always liked men who belonged to her friends. It was exciting, picking them like forbidden fruit. Giving to them what they didn’t have at home. And oh the things they didn’t get at home. The things they liked done to them, the things Stella liked done to her. It had always been so fun, so… enjoyable.
The train was slowing down again.
Stella felt a pull.
“Well, there you are,” Karen said. “I’ve talked to a few people in the train. That was me, I always had to know all the secrets. And you see, I read a lot. All my life. And to me, this looks like a modernization of a theme, you know? All of us, lost souls. On a last trip.”
“What?”
The train had almost stopped.
“There used to be a lake, or a river. And a ferryman. I think it’s a train now. A night train, of course. And you pay your ticket.”
“No.”
The automatic doors opened.
Stella stood.
“No!”
“Bye, Stella. My stop is further down, it seems.”
This is my story in reponse to Wording Wednesdays Season 1, Week 3. Andy Brokaw provides a Wording Wednesdays prompt every week (on Wednesdays!). The image above is by Erinn Komschlies.
I know the story is somewhat dark, but this was one of those ideas that stuck to my mind and didn’t let go until I wrote it down. So here it is.
Andy originally created Writing Wednesdays in MeWe, but now it can also be followed via Twitter and its own website.
