Chapter 2 — Train
And thus begins Chapter Two.
Now, children.
You may imagine there was preparation.
The council nods hopefully.
Perhaps I returned from Rishikesh,
rested.
Recovered.
Unpacked.
Washed clothes.
Regained financial stability.
Allowed my nervous system several peaceful days to remember what ordinary life felt like.
Then,
after careful consideration,
thought:
Perhaps Varkala.
The council smiles.
Healthy.
Responsible.
Children.
No.
This was the next day.
The council pauses.
The day after Rishikesh?
The day after Rishikesh.
Children.
I came home from an entire wandering.
A proper one.
Trains.
Buses.
Scooters.
Bungee jumping.
Ganga.
Ashrams.
Secret cafes.
Mushrooms.
Dogs.
The Child.
Whatever the hell happened with those three swamis.
Several small emotional revelations.
And enough accumulated exhaustion to reasonably justify becoming horizontal for a week.
I arrived home.
Passed out.
The council nods.
Good.
Excellent.
Recovery begins.
Then I woke up.
The council becomes suspicious.
And wondered:
Varkala.
The council sighs.
That was it.
No planning period.
No recovery day.
No discussion with myself regarding whether perhaps my body would appreciate not immediately leaving again.
I woke.
Remembered that embarrassing gap in my Kerala knowledge.
And decided:
“I’m going to Varkala.”
The council waits.
Tomorrow?
No.
Soon?
No.
Children.
Now.
The council collapses.
Apparently Rishikesh had broken something.
Or fixed something.
Difficult to tell with the Unbegun.
Because before Kasol,
leaving required circumstance.
Before Rishikesh,
leaving required the weight getting loud enough.
But now?
Curiosity formed.
Decision followed.
Movement began.
The council notices this.
We will not overanalyse yet.
Children.
There was a train to catch.
Now.
Varkala had one enormous advantage over almost every previous wandering.
Distance.
The council opens a map.
Kasol?
An expedition.
Rishikesh?
An expedition.
Goa?
Several hours and Fast Travel.
Kodaikanal?
Mountain campaign.
Varkala?
Forty five minutes.
The council pauses.
That’s it?
That’s it.
Children.
Forty five minutes.
I had spent longer than that looking for food after getting high.
I had spent longer than that sitting beside rivers.
I had spent longer than that waiting for mushrooms to reveal whether we’d been scammed.
The council nods.
This was nothing.
Which gave me confidence.
Dangerous confidence.
Because children,
when a journey is short,
you begin believing logistics no longer apply.
Why plan?
Why book?
Why think?
It is forty five minutes.
Just go.
And so,
I made a mistake.
The council leans forward.
A horrible mistake.
A severe mistake.
A mistake so easily avoidable that Present Nuo remains offended by the arrogance of Past Nuo.
Children.
I did not book a train ticket.
The council pauses.
At all?
Not in advance.
No reservation.
No seat.
Nothing.
I simply arrived at the railway station.
Walked to the ticket counter.
And said:
“Varkala.”
The council waits.
That was the booking strategy?
Yes.
One word.
The vendor understood.
Money moved.
Ticket appeared.
The council nods.
Success.
Technically.
And then,
armed with the confidence of a man who had successfully completed one transaction,
I entered the train.
Specifically
the general compartment.
The council goes silent.
Children.
I had heard stories.
Everyone has heard stories.
General compartment.
The place spoken about with the same tone sailors once used for sea monsters.
Crowds.
Human beings packed beyond what geometry should permit.
No seats.
Sweat.
Heat.
Bags.
Elbows.
People occupying physical locations that appear incapable of containing people.
The council nods.
I knew the legends.
But children
forty five minutes.
That phrase had become my shield.
No seat?
Fine.
Forty five minutes.
Standing?
Fine.
Forty five minutes.
Crowded?
How bad could it possibly get?
The council stares at me.
Yes.
I know.
Never ask that question.
Now.
When I entered,
things looked manageable.
No seats.
Expected.
The council checks.
Every seat occupied.
People settled.
Luggage placed.
But the compartment itself?
Not yet catastrophic.
There was standing room.
Space.
Actual visible floor.
Children.
Luxury.
I walked toward the door.
Found myself a little position nearby.
And thought:
Perfect.
I don’t need a seat.
I can stand.
The breeze will come through.
I’ll watch the world pass.
Forty five minutes.
The council nods slowly.
Almost pleasant.
There was just one detail.
Departure?
Thirty minutes away.
The council grows concerned.
Children.
The train had not finished acquiring humans.
One passenger entered.
Then another.
Fine.
Another.
Another.
Still fine.
A family.
Some bags.
A man squeezing through.
More people.
The council begins counting.
Ten.
Twenty.
More.
And they kept coming.
Children.
At some point,
the compartment stopped filling
and began compressing.
The council watches in horror.
The empty spaces disappeared first.
Then comfortable spaces.
Then personal spaces.
Then the philosophical concept of space itself.
Another passenger entered.
And another.
And somehow,
despite every visual indicator suggesting:
FULL,
more humans continued appearing.
The council erupts.
WHERE ARE THEY GOING?
Inside.
Apparently.
Children.
I began learning something extraordinary about the human body.
It is far more compressible than anatomy textbooks suggest.
The council nods solemnly.
I moved slightly.
Someone moved into the space I had abandoned.
I attempted to reclaim half an inch.
Impossible.
Another body had already filed a property claim.
The train still had not departed.
The council looks toward the clock.
Twenty minutes.
Children.
Twenty minutes still remained.
And the prophecy continued fulfilling itself.
Heat increased.
Air decreased.
Noise multiplied.
Bags appeared in places bags should not be.
Someone’s shoulder existed against my chest.
A stranger’s elbow was near my face.
Another person’s leg had somehow entered a jurisdiction I considered personally relevant.
The council becomes concerned.
Then
more passengers.
Children.
Hundreds?
Maybe.
The Archive does not contain a census.
It felt like the entire population of Kerala had simultaneously decided:
Varkala.
The council laughs.
And before I knew it
the legends were true.
All of them.
Crowded?
Children.
Crowded is what happens at a supermarket on Sunday.
This was human fusion.
The council goes silent.
I was no longer standing beside other passengers.
I was merging with them.
There was no Nuo.
There was only:
Passenger Mass.
The council stares.
An elbow on my face.
A knee somewhere near my spleen.
A bag pressing into my side.
My arm trapped in a position I had not selected.
Children.
If I had developed an itch,
that itch now belonged to destiny.
There was no scratching.
No adjusting.
No shifting.
No:
Excuse me.
Where exactly would anyone move?
The council gestures at the solid wall of humanity.
Correct.
If your body wanted something,
your body was advised to wait.
My nose itches?
Endure.
Leg uncomfortable?
Endure.
Need more oxygen?
Negotiate with the atmosphere.
The council nods.
I began reconsidering several decisions.
Primarily:
Why didn’t I book a seat?
And:
Why did I believe forty five minutes made me immortal?
Then
the train moved.
The council cheers faintly.
At last.
Children.
The doors remained where doors normally remain.
But whatever pleasant fantasy I had possessed about standing near one and enjoying fresh air
had been crushed beneath approximately seventeen strangers.
I could occasionally perceive outside.
Briefly.
Through gaps.
A flash of station.
Then buildings.
Then movement.
The train accelerated.
And the countdown began.
Forty five minutes.
The council sets a timer.
Children.
You would think forty five minutes is short.
It is.
Usually.
But time obeys environment.
Forty five minutes while asleep?
Instant.
Fast Travel.
Forty five minutes with coffee and conversation?
Nothing.
Forty five minutes while compressed into a human brick?
The council looks grim.
A geological era.
Every minute had texture.
Every second possessed elbows.
The council sighs.
And remember
I had come home from Rishikesh yesterday.
Yesterday.
My body had barely completed the first recovery nap.
I was tired before boarding.
Now I was tired,
hot,
compressed,
and increasingly aware that perhaps the universe had decided to punish me for refusing to perform the basic adult task of booking a train seat.
The council nods.
Fair sentencing.
Still
misery had something going for it.
A deadline.
The council leans forward.
Forty five minutes.
That’s the wonderful thing about short term suffering.
You can see the other side.
I did not need to solve the compartment.
I did not need to become comfortable.
I did not need to achieve enlightenment through crowd density.
I simply needed to remain alive until Varkala.
The council applauds.
Objective updated:
ENDURE.
Children.
And endure I did.
Station.
Movement.
Heat.
People getting off.
Other people somehow getting on.
The crowd changing shape without ever becoming less crowd.
I lost all interest in whatever romantic expectation people have of railway travel.
No staring thoughtfully through windows.
No soundtrack.
No poetic contemplation of the road.
Just survival.
The council nods.
Forty five minutes.
Forty.
Thirty.
Probably.
I did not check.
Children.
My phone might as well have been located in another country.
It existed somewhere in my pocket,
a pocket my hand no longer possessed access rights to.
The council laughs.
So I waited.
And slowly
slowly
the journey consumed itself.
The misery had a finite supply.
Minute by minute,
it ran out.
Then the train began slowing.
The council leans forward.
Station.
Signs.
Movement around me changed.
People prepared to exit.
Which is a fascinating concept when everyone is already physically interlocked.
Children.
The Passenger Mass began reorganizing.
Someone pushed.
Someone shifted.
A corridor appeared for approximately half a second.
I moved with it.
Not by choice.
Like debris in a river.
The council watches.
Then
platform.
Varkala.
The council cheers.
Children.
I escaped.
Not elegantly.
Not triumphantly.
I emerged.
Onto solid ground.
Personal space returned.
The council gasps.
AIR.
I breathed.
Properly.
Moved my arms.
Checked whether all body parts remained attached.
They did.
Miracle.
And there I stood.
Varkala.
The council grows quiet.
No two day train.
No bus relay.
No mountain road.
No border.
No Mushroom Quest.
Forty five minutes.
One extremely concentrated dose of human suffering.
And I had arrived.
Children.
I was still exhausted from Rishikesh.
The previous wandering had barely had time to become memory.
My body knew this.
My wallet definitely knew this.
Funds?
Limited.
The council checks treasury.
Concerning.
Expectations?
None.
Because how could I have expectations?
Remember the entire reason I came.
I knew nothing.
Ocean.
Kerala.
That was the file.
And now,
for the first time,
I stood inside the answer.
The council listens.
No sadness pushing me forward.
No chemistry waiting at the destination.
No great quest marker.
Just a station.
A tired body.
A thin wallet.
And curiosity.
Children.
The strange thing about Varkala began before I saw a single cliff.
Before the sea.
Before whatever this wandering would become.
Because I had done something I had never really done before.
I had returned from one wandering
slept
and left again.
The council notices.
Not because I couldn’t bear home.
Not because the weight screamed.
Just because another place existed nearby
and I wanted to see it.
Movement had become easier.
The decision had become smaller.
No dramatic threshold.
No:
Can I really do this?
Just:
Varkala?
Sure.
The council grows quiet.
Perhaps that is what happens after enough roads.
At first,
leaving feels like an event.
Eventually,
it becomes a verb.
The council smiles.
But children
that realization belongs to Present Nuo.
The idiot standing outside Varkala station had a much simpler thought.
He stretched his aching body.
Looked around at a town he knew absolutely nothing about.
And thought:
Right.
Now what?
Thus concludes Chapter Two.
The Recovery Day That Never Happened.
The One Word Ticket Purchase.
The General Compartment.
The Human Fusion Experiment.
And Forty Five Minutes Of Endurance.
Children.
I had finally reached Varkala.
Exhausted.
Poor.
Unprepared.
And carrying exactly one useful thing.
No expectations.
The council nods.
Sometimes,
that is the best luggage.
