I had a dream last night that I was the sole passenger on a train — A train that ran on no track. I only realized it when we passed through a place I wasn’t expecting. “This isn’t on the route”, I thought. I then noticed the train was free-falling down a steep slope. I was petrified. To my amazement, the unseen engineer skillfully navigated a sharp right turn onto an old trolley track, And we descended a curving road paved with Belgian block. The ride down was rough, but as we reached the bottom, we slid comfortably onto level ground. Then I watched with disbelief as the train coasted through a forbidding gate — The guard standing sentinel smiled and waved us through as if we were expected. I finally understood that this chaotic journey had been carefully orchestrated: The route without a track was exactly how I was supposed to reach my destination.
It’s true that the mercurial twists and turns of my life have often scared and perplexed me. I learned long ago to work with whatever tools are available to me in the moment, without attachment, Trusting that, somehow, it will lead me to my next step. When the tool inevitably breaks and the moment ends, I’ve never hesitated to take the next turn, the next bend, the next exit — To my mind, I’ve never had a choice. To those outside my train, it must look confusing and erratic. I’ve become used to the looks of bewilderment, the remarks of scorn and ridicule. What people have yet to comprehend is that this is the future planned for all of us: The tracks that were long ago laid are being actively dismantled and destroyed. No longer will we have the luxury of following a prescribed route in comfort — We must now learn to trust the wisdom of irrational guidance. Buckle up.
It’s one of those weird moments when I walk into a room after something awful has happened, but I don’t know what.
I see a few strangers standing in the corners, glancing at each other nervously and speaking in hushed tones.
The familiar faces are nowhere to be found. But even in their absence, I can feel the tension in the pit of my stomach.
I’m not part of any clique, and I keep to myself. I’m always the last to know about anything, if I ever know about it at all.
I’ve spent my life as an oblivious outsider — my only companion is my angel.
Through trial and error, we’ve developed a seamless form of communication. Something isn’t right, I’ll think to myself. “Time to go”, he whispers in confirmation.
I used to be scared by the uncertainty: he never tells me where we’re going next, and there’s usually some lingering sadness or guilt. Often a lot. We always end up in a better place, though.
Sometimes — years later, perhaps — an unbelievable quirk in the matrix will reveal to me what actually happened. Not the surface event necessarily, but the underlying truth of it. I have insane luck in that regard.
Oh, now I get it, I tell my guy, as I tuck the wisdom in my soul.
And here I am again, standing by myself in a dark space where life has suddenly gone absent. “Time to go”, he tells me.
It was a dreary summer morning: overcast, not as hot as it could be, muggy, lifeless, and boring as hell.
I lined up several buckets of silty water on the edge of the creek. My feet sank into the mud, with globs of dark sand coating my sandals. I tried to avoid the giant piles of goose shit, but there was so much of it that I quickly gave up.
The creek cut through the city like a sewer — smelled like one, too. The banks were covered with urban refuse: clothing, old furniture, car bumpers, that sort of thing. The water was clear, but it must have been incredibly toxic, because I never saw any fish in it.
Most days when I worked at the creek, a resident flock of Canadian geese would scatter across the surface of the water and fuss at me from a safe distance. They were gone that morning, though — the droppings and feathers on the ground let me know they had recently passed through.
Pulling water from the creek was sort of fun when I first started the job, but it quickly became routine drudgery. It wasn’t the filling part that was bad, but hauling those heavy buckets up the granite steps from the creek to the top of the bank.
I got slower and wearier with each visit, taking my sweet time and frequently stopping for breaks. No one from my work helped me or even checked in to see what I was doing, so what did it matter?
The creek was low that morning: there was a drop of a good foot or more from the bottom step to the sandbar, which was usually submerged in water. That made the trek up the steps particularly grueling, and I took more breaks than usual.
At some point, a hazy figure appeared in my periphery. I glanced up the slope to see a man in a dark shirt and blue jeans, likely in his 30s, stepping off a bicycle. From a distance, he looked like a typical urban dweller out for a morning bike ride. Probably from a nearby apartment building, I quickly decided.
As I walked up the steps with a bucket in each hand, the man took off his backpack and laid it beside his bicycle, rummaging through the bag slowly and deliberately.
Up close, my perception of him changed. His clothes were clean and form-fitting, his hair was neat and short, but his face was worn, sunburned, with several days’ growth of dirty blonde stubble. He had the grim expression of a drifter who lived hard and toiled much.
He muttered something to himself as I looked ahead and said nothing. Further away, I shifted my eyes in his direction for a moment and had the distinct impression that he was doing the same to me. I can usually sum up a person to my satisfaction within a second or two, but everything about this man confused me.
I was surprised that I had no fear of him, but my defenses were still raised from hardened experience, checking for any sudden movements or strange behavior. I readied myself for the typical sob story and request for money.
I walked back down the steps a few minutes later, and the guy was standing at the water’s edge, barefoot, with his shoes in hand, carefully shaking dirt out of them.
I said nothing as I stood beside him, grabbed the two remaining buckets, and walked away. His backpack was sitting on the steps, unzipped; it was faded but clean — cleaner than the bag I carried — and appeared neatly packed with folded clothes.
At the top of the steps, I looked down and saw the guy pouring water on his face and soaking his hair. Jesus, I wonder if he’s going to bathe there, I thought with a twinge of sadness. I stayed away for a few minutes to give him some privacy.
When I returned, he was at the top of the steps again, standing by the bicycle and wringing out a shirt that he had presumably soaked in the creek. I lined up all my buckets again on the sandbar and began refilling them.
“Hey, man”, he called from the top of the steps.
Here it comes, I thought.
“Can you fill this bottle for me from the creek?” he said with a slight drawl, holding out a container in my direction.
“Sure”, I said automatically, running up the steps to grab it from his hand. I was both perplexed by his request and my willingness to help.
The bottle was made of thick glass and appeared quite clean. I dutifully unscrewed the lid and dunked the container in the water, listening to the glub glub glub as I avoided touching the rim.
Is this guy going to drink this shit?, I thought. Why am I even doing this?
I pulled the bottle out and inspected the contents — the water looked perfectly clean and clear.
I darted back up the steps and handed the bottle to him.
“Thanks,” he said. “That water is nasty as hell, but I need it to cool off during the day.”
“Yeah”, I responded with a nervous chuckle, trying to sound genial.
“So what are you doing with all those buckets?” he asked.
“I’m watering the trees”, I said.
“Oh, gotcha. You’re working here.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
He placed the water bottle in the backpack, zipped it up, and hopped back on the bicycle. I didn’t notice when he rode away.
As I was refilling the buckets, I spotted a tiny fish — no bigger than one of my fingers — darting through the water.
The fish swam right up to the surface, and for several minutes we both stared at each other, peering into each other’s world through the glassy barrier of the water.
