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Life is a one way ticket. You don’t remember the purchase, or getting on the ride. You look at the great expanse of this world, and disappear without so much as creating a wrinkle in the bigger picture. I decided one day to hop a train and see Canada. I caught an old CN heading North out of Toronto. It curled its way slowly through the industrial sections; it was 3AM. The buildings were mostly abandoned with shattered windows. The ghosts of a better age seemed to linger, but their grip on the sweaty concrete was loosening, and the day would come where they too, would travel away with the echo of a beaten train.
I looked up at the buildings. These monstrosities held the hopes and dreams of both the rich and desperate. Where did I fit into the equation? Never having been good at math, I figured removing myself would do everyone a world of good. The night air was cool and damp, but anything that was tangible was welcome by me. I needed that, especially tonight.
We traveled out of the city, the luminescence reluctantly gave up the sky, and I saw the stars that I had forgotten were there. The city drowns out everything; the smog gray’s the sky. The traffic buries the wind. The lights replace the stars. Some nights all you could see was Venus shining through. I thought to myself, there are two and half million people making a wish right now. What are the odds I would be first?
I gave up after that, thinking a person can actually drown without being in water. It all depends on what sea you’re swimming in.
The train worked its way through Beaverton, towards Orillia, and hid in the backwoods of Northern Ontario. Being May, the land had granted the release of nature. Nothing captivates like these parts, especially when you’re alone. Dawn had broken, and my soul felt the same.
This was not a spiritual journey, though. Like I said, it was more of a release. I was saving the powers that-be the need to calculate my fate. I let my feet dangle over the edge of the flat I was travelling on. Rocks and evergreens flashed before me, hypnotizing me. I could actually smell the air without associating it to a particular part of the city. There was no Chinatown here, no Danforth, docks or High Park. It was overwhelming, cathartic.
Then, as though I had fallen, I let out a cry. It came from a point within me that was beyond comprehension. The core of who I was had been shattered, and I felt the fragments fade into the bush. I actually felt my heart break. I find it strange how the very change you look for is the hardest thing to accept, and the very thing you are giving up is the hardest thing to part with. Memories rushed as quickly as the scenery. My loves, my passions, my sleepless nights, these pierced me. What affected me most was my family. I had not seen them since my father died on Easter morning. I held his hand when he passed hearing the echo of his life in his last breath. Just as he had disappeared, so did I.
I know they came looking for me. I heard their knocks; I saw their numbers when the phone rang. Yet they too were drowned out and never returned. I had been equated out.
I lost my bearings. After a few hours, the scenery never changed. I assumed we were headed towards Huntsville, but with no road map, or road for that matter, I didn’t know. I felt the vastness of my situation, and felt very scared all of a sudden. I thought when we equate something we make a permanent change. Since I had been subtracted from the equation, where did that leave me? I leaned forward a bit so I could see down the tracks, but it was just the same. I only had the rhythmic sound of the tracks and memory of an Easter morning that I knew now, had changed who I was, forever.
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