Chapter Text
The best thing about a train is rails. An unchanging path that they promise you before the ticket even touches your palm-- it’s freeing. You know where you’re going. You know how you’ll get there. Rails are hard guidelines and I know there’s a past self of mine that would appreciate that. Even if I had jumped my track.
The second best thing about the train was my seat. Sinking into the cushions was luxurious, even if they were carpet and scratchy against my skin. I had a pretty good view of the ocean as it whispered past yellow tinted windows. Ornate wood paneling gripped the shivering panes tightly, keeping them from flying off the rumbling train. I couldn’t help but stare at just how fast the giant vehicle could move. I had never seen anything like it-- although, I was starting to think my experience was pretty limited. It was a big world out there, and I was going to feel it for real this time. No oaths. No ropes. No responsibilities. Just beaches and sunshine until I was ready to go home again. I didn’t even bring any luggage. Is that stupid? What would I have wanted to carry, anyway?
“Hello? Ah, hello.”
A gloved hand tapped my forearm politely. The voice it matched had a thick Spanish accent that manifested in a slight lisp and almost cartoony pitch. I looked over and found myself staring into a shock of purple eyes.
“It is, uhh, okay for me to sit here?”
“Vas a la Isla Quesadilla, también?” I asked in hesitant Spanish. He had rightly clocked me as a non-native speaker, but I wanted to be courteous nonetheless.
“Yes, yes!” He said, sitting down next to me. “I have a-- ah-- a vacation. Everyone on this train-- very noisy. Very, very noisy.”
We glanced over in sync at the two men opening and closing the windows as quickly as possible. I hadn’t really noticed the commotion over the rattles and rumbles of a train and my own preoccupations, but he was right. There was a lot of mingling happening in the train car. It seemed like everyone here was here on vacation-- maybe that’s why they were in such high spirits.
“My name is Vegetta,” he said. “I am from Spain, but I live in Andorra. No taxes.”
I laughed, mostly because of the way he said it. It was like Mickey Mouse confessed to insurance fraud.
“I’m Gr--” I hesitated, I was on vacation, wasn’t I? I got to be a new man. I got to take a break from my old name.
“I’m Grenata--”
“Grenada?”
I repeated myself, enunciating the last syllable. I wasn’t trying to be confused for a Caribbean nation, but there was no turning back now.
“I’m from Arizona. I’ve never been somewhere tropical like an island before.”
Weird how a lie can be true, isn’t it? Grenata had never been anywhere at all.
“The advertisements make this place look like paradise.”
“Ah, Paradise , yes,” he repeated, nodding. I could tell he wasn’t quite catching everything I said, but I said it anyway. I got to be human this time. I got to be selfish like that.
“Yes, yes! Very beautiful in the picture. There it is--!”
He pointed out the window. In the few moments I had been looking away, the island had finally come out of the fog. Gray beaches rested on the end of it, half submerged in the frothy water. I could see from here that they were freckled with driftwood and seaweed, marking where the tide ran in and out. Trees clambered on top of each other, reaching up the distant mountains and across the shoreline. A cloud of birds shot up and I watched, mesmerized, and they circled and scattered. Pájaro, I thought, I know that one . A flock of seabirds was flying beside us, just next to the window. I could see into one’s dim eyes and I couldn’t help but be amazed.
Nothing but gods could fly in the old world.
I looked around and saw that everyone had heard Vegetta. A hush had fallen over the train car as we watched the island grow closer. It didn’t look as good as the pictures, but nothing ever does. Two dimensions and a filter can hide a lot, but it was real . It was really a new world and I had made it.
And then there was the noise.