Station 6: Burma

Myanma Alin
Fire and Steam crossing tracks

 

In recent news, there’s been a rumor of train services with possible time-traveling abilities and meeting with the dead. One could arrive at the past or the future. However, the traveler will be stuck within the confines of the train and whoever was riding at said time. Moreover, the ride lasts only as long as the train engine runs. Conspiracy theories link the paranormal occurrences with parts of the train system previously part of the construction of the infamous death railway, constructed during the 2nd World War by Allied prisoners of war. 

Following a series of train-related incidents across Korea and the rest of Asia, further questions have been placed at the hands of Government officials regarding the rising number of delays and malfunctions. Many new lines have been added to the Burmese railroad system, expanding rapidly as part of the Rail Transport Masterplan 2060, but questions remain on the reliability and ethics surrounding public/private ownership of the locomotive industry. In other news, animals have been increasing their influence within the locomotive industry. It was believed that most jobs would have been overtaken by artificial intelligence just two decades ago, but as their primal counterparts become further educated and dependable. The lower-cost alternative may prove a threat to the technological revolution.

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The train map was completely different. The stations that were supposed to be in the east were doted in the west. By my logic, Yangon should be in the south. Yet, the city has flipped head over heels with Mandalay and Myitkyina respectively. Taking out my camera, I aim and try to take a picture. A shadow is blocking part of the system map so I try again. It’s still blocked. I look at the black blur and realize it’s an arm. Through the reflection of the window, a faceless female spirit stands next to me. With her hair covering her face, she looks like a shorter black Chewbacca. Taking my eyes off the camera and photos, I turn to my left where the woman is supposed to be. There’s nothing there. “Hello?” 

A cape of darkness covers my vision as I anticipate in silence. Finally, I woke up, it was just a vision. The coffee machine wires from the kitchen, punctuated by the hiss of steam escaping from the kettle. Daylight filters through the gaps in the window, bringing in a gentle breeze.  I retrieve the drink and sink into the couch, trying to recollect the moments of the dream. Today is an off day from work so time is a luxury. Someone else messaged me that they could cover my shift. 

He’s been dreaming a lot more recently. It feels like a temporary crash into the subconscious. I can’t dictate what happens within the dream. Often, it is a flow of emotions and themes. If one can fly, they will jump across from one island to another just as how someone takes a morning jog. There is no time to question the laws of the universe, the show must go on. This is the chance to tango with his hidden personality. 

Melancholy is such a strange emotion. It’s a drug he keeps coming back to and wanting more. It’s been months since he fell for anyone else. He used to go out but stopped ever since her flesh vanished from this world. When he knocked on the door, there was no sound anymore. The door forgot what it was supposed to do, its life had ended with her. 

Like many other days, my mind began to wander as my body began to rot from the stale air particles. I was partially alert when a chime broke the silence, passing the corridor and abstract paintings before finally waking me up from a second daydream. There weren’t many people who would want to approach him at this time of the day. The last time someone even came to his apartment was his sister to pass a book and some snacks. The strawberry-shaped chocolates have been collecting dust in the fridge ever since they arrived. 

Peeping through the hole, the floor was clean of any silhouettes. I unlatched the lock and pulled back. There is a small envelope the size of a letter on the floor. He came to the door as soon as he could, but whoever dropped it off was gone without a trace. Curiosity seasons my mind as I crouch down to pick it up and inspect the parameters. The bubble wrap covers something rectangular like a book, though it couldn’t be one given its slenderness. 

No one I know would want to go through the trouble of dropping it here. He is remarkable in his own way, but he doesn’t publicize his projects to the world. Moreover, the Burmese Postal Service put in place new measures to automate and streamline mailing systems from the letterboxes downstairs to reach their homes. The envelope doesn’t contain any address or indication of who was the sender. Just a sticker of two moons and a monkey. As long as it is not a bomb or a cursed second-hand item, there’s no harm in keeping it for now.

Tearing through the wrapping at the top, a hole manages to form. I dig my hand inside, holding a firm grip on the item as I draw it out using that hand. My other pulling the envelope apart, revealing a cassette tape. His doctor instructed him that in his method to limit screen time, he could combat his future by reverting to the past. He hasn’t found anything interesting to play up till now. But he bought the equipment just in case. The mystery sender knows that he has a cassette player as well. 

Through the depths of hell and the kitchen, I manage to scavenge through the boxes before pulling out the cassette player. I can worry about the dust coating the surface another time. It’s a lot heavier than he remembers, and its wires tangled while getting lost in the darkness. Reverse-engineering the wires, I feed them into the speakers and plugs and let the player snack on the tape by its mouth. The tape fitted perfectly. Closed. Pressed. Start. Nothing happens for a while until a feminine voice starts playing.  

“Is this working?” He could hear the tactile tappings of a girl’s cassette recorder and the weight of each breath before she continued speaking: “Ok can. Hey Timo. I’m sorry I’m gone. I am only afforded one tape and I knew I needed you to hear this.” It's her again. At this, I brighten up and listen more closely. Crystal carries on talking, her voice mixed with longing and desperation as she tells him she is sorry for anything she's done in the past. She thought that a second chance would come its way eventually. We always have the assumption that the future is always ready, that we can always make an outing next week, or plan a trip overseas next month. Time has flown past billions of years. There was no reason to think it would cut short now. She gave him a lot of plastic lies before, but if there is one thing he has to believe, what he is reading on the news is true–as unreal as it sounds, there may be a way to see her again. Maybe. “There is a coffee shop called Choo Choo Chew. Go and order the ‘Burmese special express.’  Go there and the rest will take care of you…I still think about you. Actually, no that’s an understatement. I want to and am dying to see you again, no pun intended. Until then, take care!”

The cassette player spits the tape back out and the room returns to its silent equilibrium. The voice was crackling but he could hear her warmth because it was smooth. She didn’t offer any explanation of how the tape got here or how she got to speak. The rush in her voice might have suggested there was a time limit. At the same time, there's a pause between each sentence, unsure of which select words to choose. He can picture her sitting opposite him and saying everything. Memories that exist but were forgotten refilled his brain and overflowed. “Thanda please find me a way to Choo Choo Chew.”

On the hologram television, a fifty-inch TV pops out of a tiny box, featuring the colored map of Burma and its twenty one divisions. In the corner, a timer starts ticking down his screen time allowance, which has decreased from last month to just two hours a day. A purple highlight outlines the route from his house to the coffee shop. It’s a few hour's drive across Mandalay. I memorize the different highways and tell Thanda it is enough. The system turns back off. 

In hindsight, the screen time limit imposed is good for his health. The doctor told him that his cataracts is not getting any better. Anyway, the pet alarm is about to ring anytime now. Instructing my Thanda to hand me my outing box, I dip my hand inside and grab my turned-off phone, credit card, and essentials as I change up.

The lift takes me down to the basement with my Corolla. It’s a surprise they are still available in the market given the environmental policies. They merged their emission contributions with another car company, Volta, and that kept them on the good books. I invested in a Thanda inside the car as well. Voicing the instructions into it, the automation system starts and a text guide appears. Classic pop plays from the speakers as I drive to the gate. 

The guards ask me where I am going and I tell them lunch. Thankfully, there are fewer of them on the road now. Someone realized they could be put in more important places than the convenience stores. I ask Thanda to provide some more information on this cafe like the news, history, and Burmese Express, it thinks I'm crazy. Whether or not it is real, it can’t hurt to enjoy some good food. 

So much time has passed since I last saw her. She’s left this earth behind, and yet I’d still move the planets just to be with her again. The memories come back just as they did the day before and the day before that. How many years has it been? I can hardly remember anymore, I'm old enough that I lost count of my birthdays. For a long time now, I never liked her, but I did love her. Together, we used to play pretend with the past. Even worse, she never tried to grow up. Man, I could not stand her diet. Every week was a trip on her list of preselected cafes. 

The noise of drinks dispensing, swooshes of cloths across the table, and cashiers playing background to hit songs from a time before we were born are all custom. The receipt comes and the receipt goes, taking my daily allowance in the process. To make her pity me, I wouldn’t buy anything and watch her eat her meal and guilt together. Crystal always hated that. 

That was what happened on the last day too. We went out together, admittedly as a group and with other friends to keep the parents happy. It wouldn’t surprise me if they were hiding in the background spying on us(which they’ve actually done previously). The Zoo had opened an arctic section and our friends wanted to see the kaleidoscope of multi-shaded penguins and huggable snow foxes. The park was large enough to occupy an entire district in the state and took up a whole day of viewing that the tickets squeezed our wallets tight. The parents always made sure she was right where they could see her. They came to school just as much as she did. I never knew there were people who never rode public transport, maybe one day I will get a private chauffeur.  

We went to the Arctic Zoo. The whales whistled, the ground squirrels snuggled each other, and between us, we were also indulging in each other’s outfits. People would have mistaken us for traveling in the snow. However, haven’t we always been living in a snow globe? The world is full of coldness where you only see half of a person’s face. We now look at one half of a face, wondering what the other half is thinking. We look at screens where profile faces never match one’s real face. And now with virtual headsets, we walk around showing none of it. 

To me, the layers of jackets were more cute rather than pretty. I could not have complained either way. It took a lot of courage for her to ask her parents to go out on such an expensive trip.  I thought about what we would say to each other once our friends left early and we were the last two people in the world. Unexpectedly, a screaming uncle ushered her parents away to settle things at his place. Imagination had become a reality. A reality we didn’t know what to do with. So we went to the cafe which “was not old, but vintage.” Pulling a waiter aside, we ordered through him rather than digitally. Just like in the early 2000s.  It was a vinyl cafe and I let her pick the music. I could tolerate Coldplay for one meal. Especially if I knew what was about to come. 

In the evening, we found a dark, quiet spot and teased each other for as long as the train schedule would allow. No one else was on the last train except us. Those were the moments people waited to happen to them. The ones I wished I didn’t see in the movies so that I could experience it firsthand for myself. And by not thinking about it, I wouldn’t know what to do next, and I could create and own the moment with her. 

Sitting on the train, came the wish that the ride would never end, because lightning wouldn’t strike twice. Instead, we droned over the most mundane things like academics. We knew we wouldn’t be seeing each other for the foreseeable future. In this world, I had to stay put in Myanmar, she would have gone to Los Angeles, the city of angels. The dream city for a dreamy girl. 

“Is this the last time that we will see each other?” 

“You can always come to the States if you fancy.” Crystal smiled then. 

“I would love to. The records are definitely cheaper there.”  She slapped my face afterward. Those were the easiest times to laugh. 

As we reached my stop,  I asked her to promise me that we would see each other again. She promised and we hugged. We hugged as long as possible that the doors closed on me as I left. The train ride may have only been twenty minutes, but each sentence lasted days. By the time I turned around, she was accelerating to her death. 

The news the next day was sobering. I drank beer as it was the easiest way to refill the deficit. The Arctic Zoo kickstarted my ice age era. Her promises were forever frozen in time. The ghost of her lay beneath the permafrost deep below the ground. It is only by the grace of god that I got this cassette tape. This is my iron pickaxe which I will use to thaw through the ice and retrieve her words. 

The car drops me outside the cafe entrance, before sending me updates by the minute until it finally finds a parking spot. The place was spilling in white paint. The atmosphere felt airy and invited history while inviting new history to walk inside as I did. The cooler air caresses me as my shoes feel the roughness of the wooden floor that was only softened by the bright setting. A newly refurbished Scandinavian counter stretches into a rectangular donut at the center of the cafe. Some student baristas and a head chef is cooking the meals. 

A sketch-up menu hangs from above with hand-painted letters. As she told me, the Burmese special express was there. I re-read it and verified it word for word. It’s slightly overpriced for a set meal.  The cafe was also vintage in that there was no machine to take orders. I went to the counter and ask if such a thing exists. She asks me for my name and I tell her. A faint, enigmatic curve plays at the corner of the woman’s lip as she enters something into the kiosk. She gestures towards the credit card sensor and I make my payment before finding one of the cushioned benches facing the wall. On the digital cash register, the payments from both him and Crystal were completed. 

On the wall, two classic windows are perched out wide, showing inside it a photograph taken of one of the earliest train models during the reign of King Rama. My parents told me that Grandpa once worked on them during the war. They never told me which part of the rail bore his touch. But they made sure that the train I took would never cross over it. It wouldn’t be nice to run over the dead. 

For a place that hit the local newspapers, there was only a handful of people evenly spaced out. There were more seats that were resting than people were. Small pockets of words fly around with the gentle clinking of saucers. Sound is only as loud as the mind makes it out to be. The mind has to put up with the noise of the internal and external worlds battling with each other. It’s an endless king of the hill where either one occupies until the best I can think of is not to think. 

A bowl then knocks on the table, forcing the stalemate to collapse. It is a set meal with coconut curry soup noodles and chicken, a side of mango sticky rice, and strongly brewed milk tea. I thank her and collect the utensils. She comes closer and leans into my ear. “Make sure you finish your meal, you don't wanna miss out on anything.” It was not a question, but a mandatory instruction told with the illusion of choice. No one else bothers to look as she gives me a secret. Maybe they are all experienced in this or are too busy using their vision goggles and messaging their friends to take notice.

I always finished my meals. At first by choice, and then necessity. Just like adults, crops become lazier and don’t want to grow up. That's what happens when we don't feed it with phosphorus, potassium, or discipline. We became what we eat. With little resistance, I indulged in the spice and sweetness of the coconut broth. I half hoped for fireworks to bloom inside my mouth, but nothing happened as I finished the ingredients. All that was left was the broth. I thought she did mention finishing everything. If this were a video game, I would be tapping the question mark at the corner. 

My thought processes in these kinds of decisions forced me to exhaust every possible option. Pouring the bowl of 60 degrees into my mouth, black letters emerged from the bottom of the white bowl stating a time, date, and location: midnight, tomorrow,  Myohaung 382 3/4 (Yangon-Mandalay line). Exactly after catching my reaction, the same waitress took a glance in my direction and offered to return the plates and cup. The newspapers were right.

I took my time to find the car and make my way home. No one I knew talked to me about the cafe. When I finally did message some of my friends, they said they never tried it. Coming home, I didn't know what to do. My heart was ten years younger, eager to unwrap a surprise gift but my mind is ten years older, Knowing that I would leave myself vulnerable, I scan through my records and found the one that was played at the cafe during the last(and last) time we met. Turning on the speakers and turntable, I let the album play from start to finish. I try to picture the world inside of those songs and what it looked like. How blood could be visually thicker than water or how the winds rose in the early 2000s. I would think it is much gentler than they are now. Is heaven a place built using the past or the future?

On the shelf, I remember there's a stack of my old school notes. Those were the times when problems came one at a time, and every problem had a solution. There were a series of moments–the settings may be different but the execution the same–we could have been learning it for the first time, doing guided questions or practice papers. Our teacher would prey around each student until he caught a student in their moment of weakness. Returning to the board, he scribbles out (a+b)² = a² + b² + 2ab. 

“A squared plus B square is not A plus B ALL SQUARE!” I can hear him saying it right here and see the handwriting even fifteen years later. 

That night, I walked through a tunnel. Darkness turned into the light so bright there was nothing that could be seen but light. I couldn't see what I was standing on. A masculine but tender voice begins to speak to me, he goes through my highest highs and lowest lows in precise detail.  In finality, he tells me that I am to serve four years of purgatory before I gain entry into heaven. There comes a moment when your consciousness transitions and a non-lucid dream to a lucid dream. There then comes a moment when you realize that a lucid dream is a reality. Is it possible I died in my sleep? It’s certainly not out of the picture given my health. 

Looking at the past 27 years, I am okay with going. I had nothing left on earth because I took nothing to begin with. Life is too tiring to bear any regrets. When people come to my grave, they will not look at the body beneath, but at the hyphen between my birth year and my death year on my tombstone, and everything that came in between then and now. What if she is somewhere there as well? I'm ready to go.

Finally, there comes the moment when I wake up. This was the easiest to accept. Across the night, I must have slipped inside a letter that was posted to the wrong address, before the mental acrobatics landed me back in my room. This is the first time I can recall two dreams(and lucid ones as a matter of fact) in two consecutive days. The first was the one of me taking a photograph on the train and capturing a woman, the second was this. 

If there is indeed a higher power, the divine would hear all languages of the heart and beauty. I still wasn't sure whether to go but when the food begins to talk, it's the time to stand up at attention. It was nearing 9 pm now and I grabbed the same essentials along with the cassette tape and receipt from the cafe. Everything is squeezed in formation inside my pockets, sparing my two hands from any duty. Anxiety turns the steering wheel into ice as my arms tense up even when driving straight.  I paid extra attention as I controlled the car across the dimly lit roads. Were the lights always on 24/7 or was it specially prepared for him? He has never actually been that far up north. But he suspects this is where his parents think his grandparents worked during the war. He doesn’t need to know of course. Ignorance is bliss. Without speaking, I recite over and over what I would intend to say. By now the moon has fully risen and can be seen from the windscreen. 

He hasn’t been out this late in a long time, let alone at a train station past its supposed operating hours. The carpark was naked, no cars were covering the space except mine. The scene is eerily quiet as if I just entered a horror film. I turn around the corner, and fortunately instead of seeing the ghost from two days ago, there was a ticketing office with just enough light behind the opaque windows to know its alive. As I near it, a hand waves from below the glass panel. 

“Timothy right?” A low voice echoes. 

“Yes sir”

“Repeat the instruction you saw from the bowl yesterday.”

Confirming my appointment from behind the one-way glass, buttons begin to exercise from behind. “Listen very carefully. The train has been prepared for you courtesy of her. The train’s engine will run for a set amount of time until you have to alight at the last station. You can do whatever with her on the train, but by the time the train terminates, leave your past at the door.” 

The gantry automatically opened and I stepped through into the emptiest train platform ever known to man. He told me to wait at the 2nd last door and wait for the train to arrive. The station feels deserted, like a lost child finding its way and has forgotten where its people went after work hours. No souls stood along the rest of the hundred and twenty meters of the platform stretching from east to west. Perhaps this was one cruel and elaborate prank. The guy at the ticketing counter will catch me from behind any time now and say “Ha! You’ve been fooled”, and I'll be going home as I try to cope with my exposed vulnerability. I will use the bedsheets to cover it all up as I sink into the bed and let it consume me whole.

When the clock struck twelve, a train began to emerge from the shadows, its whistle slicing through the night air. Unlike other trains though, there were no fancy promotions or advertisements pasted on it. My eyes failed to paint over the metal carriage with the latest fashion trends. It was definitely an older rolling stock like the DD99s which were bought from Japan but now was decommissioned and beyond economic repair…except that it wasn't.

For a long time, I never believed that what I saw in museums was real. People and objects wrote a story where I was only included in the epilogue. But this train. The train's arrival is an announcement that the past has returned to the present. Kings have indeed worn their golden bracelets, eating from the porcelain bowls glazed with intricate illustrations. Yes, someone made that. With their bare hands. Someone had their respect enslaved in past centuries to lay the rails that run the trains of today. 

The doors opened and I stepped in. It may not have been the exact train we last rode, but it feels like one. There were ‘people’ on the train–physical entities that held a translucent quality to their appearance. The air simply went and occupied their internals as if it was never there. Kids and elderly folk came in and out of the train as couples stood against the railing talking to one another. A student dozed off by the window seat, holding the phone on his lap.  

Upon initial search, there was no glimpse of an enchanting 18 year old Burmese girl. None of them possessed the radiant tan or circular glasses that would have accentuated her almond-shaped eyes. In desperation, I half ran, half walked across each carriage trying to catch her. It was only until the last carriage that there she was. She was the only one whose body was real. Taking the cassette tape out of my pocket, I came from behind and tapped her shoulder. 

“I think you’re looking for this.” 

“Timo” Her eyes flared up. “I told you I could keep a promise.”

“If only for a brief moment. I don’t know when I have to leave.”

“I know.”

What questions do you ask a person who temporarily came back from the dead? When they go up to heaven, do they take their memories along with them? It's been eight years since it happened. Is she no longer the same girl as she was back then? Are there brains in heaven? Probably so if she was able to arrange this mini train date. 

“Are you really dead now? Or is this some other state I wouldn't know?”

“Let's just say I worked my ass off to get here. And business is just as difficult in the afterlife as it is here.” she sighed at the end.

“Don’t you think that you died a little too fast than you would’ve wanted?” 

“Eh. God never promised an easy road, only a worthwhile trip.” 

“So that means catholicism does indeed exist, am I right.” I pointed back

“As a concept, yes. If that’s what you’re looking for.”

“What is heaven like?”

“You'll find it eventually.” 

Of course, she would have brought something up about God. I thought to myself. “I can't believe it's been eight years already. You should have come to me sooner.”

Crystal explained once more that she did her best to reach as soon as possible. There were some favors she had to do to appease some child up there. She didn’t deny the existence of god but said there was a series of abstract concepts that governed all worlds, his and hers included. She keeps getting this foreign thought that someone took a Shinkansen and was transported to a state of transcendence and took control of things, similar to what my Japanese teacher told me previously. “In this vision, society enters “the new world”. In it, he sets the rules and chooses what he wants to see unfold.”Sometimes I think that it's actually real and I'm living inside it. Like a passenger inside my own train of thoughts.”

“Yeah.”

We exchanged some memories of the past. The first thing that resurfaced was the amazing race. We were lost in a forest, alone and drenched from the sudden downpour. As developed as 7G was back then, our phones couldn’t catch a signal from the wet skies. The get-out-of-jail card had been severed in half. Together, we shared a space beneath a tree and talked about whatever 18 year olds would talk about. 

When asked what was the memory for me, it was when a friend joined the two of us. He was complaining about a shitty online application and together, we shouted YES at the same time. It should have been two normal shouts superimposed into a slightly louder yes. But upon hearing each other’s voices, as though by nature, we amped up our ‘E’s even more, like competing with each other in a shouting competition until the entire classroom could hear us. It was nothing more than two humans making the same noise for three seconds

We as humans set entire stages for musicians to yell on microphones, surrounded by the echoes of tens of thousands of people. It is socially acceptable and socially inviting to scream at the top of your lungs as long as it follows a universal lyric that people have been conditioned to like. Despite all of that, I would still have rather laid my head on a platter than turn to see her just as awkward face and the muffled giggles of classmates behind. The subsequent awkward silence left a bittersweet taste in my mouth that I wished would be covered up.

And now, we have too much silence. There was too much to say and too little time. Time is a non-negotiable agent who only works twenty four hours a day and seven days a week. Nothing more. Nothing less. When two objects come crashing towards each other in opposite directions. It is stated by Newton’s third law that when two objects of equal mass collide with each other at equal speeds, the two objects exert a force of equal strength in the opposite direction on each other. This causes them to rebound in opposite directions. In this case, it is leaving behind an empty space where our voices repel from each other–there was no point in asking what we had for breakfast or did in our free time. Such exchanges were no longer relevant. We both understand that. 

How do you catch up with someone after such a long absence from their body, only for them to return with a second coming(from the dead)? Neither of us was talking to the 18 year old versions of the other. But 18 year old hearts in 27 year old bodies that have forgotten how to talk like young adults and are pretending to be it again.  

The train continues to rumble along the rail tracks and the sound takes over. Time takes its time to move from one moment to the next. As I look out the window, I don’t see anything outside. Through the reflection, Crystal is looking outside as well. And together we make eye contact with each other’s reflections. Both of our faces break into each other’s favorite smiles, which in doing so, radiates intimacy and trust into the other. There is something magical in the fact that we can look at each other eye to eye, with our eyes diverging in different directions, but trusting that somehow they will eventually find each other and meet. 

As we looked at each other’s bodies, the air conditioner from behind blows Crystal’s hair, letting it fall gracefully onto my face and smoothening it. The hair holds precious memories which I welcome as it caresses my cheeks. I turn back towards her like a parent finding out her child had been caught doing something naughty. The guilt spreads over her face as she turns to me too, openly admitting her mistake, as pleasant as a mistake can possibly be. 

“Timothy.” There is something about hearing someone else say your name. It’s a drug that she could cast on me anytime, and I’d be wishing it would repeat on a loop for as long as we knew each other. 

“Do you still write stuff on that document?” Crystal asked. 

“No, but, I take a look at it every now and then.”

“I still can’t believe we communicated entirely on that shared Word document. It’s hundreds of pages long.”

“Maybe your parents are still reading everything from your messages to social media and even emails. I’ve yet to see any other parents as ambitious as yours.”

I continue: “So much more could have and should have been done together. Remember that time when we were sitting in the canteen, just about to go home, and your parents spotted us talking from across the basketball court in their car? Later that night, your parents asked about me and you relayed the info via the doc. What are they doing spotting their 18 year old daughter? They should be superheroes eyeing up mischief from a mile away!”

“Remember all those times Madame Soe was rambling about a plus b square equals a squared plus b squared plus 2ab?” Crystal asks.

“Yea of course I remember that.”

“She said there are three kinds of people in this world: Number one: those who know about the 2ab. Number two: those who forgot the 2ab. And three, the ones who think the 2ab is magic.” 

“Even just hearing it again is giving me traumatic flashbacks.” The idiocy of such a memory made her take a step back and look to the side before sighing the disbelief away. It was a happy disappointment.

“So how did you do on your final exams?” It had been so long since the results were released, but I always imagined how I would have broken the news to her. I gave her a cheeky smirk and that was all she needed to know.

“I’m so proud of you! Good job man.”

“I needed all the luck I could get. During the morning of the physics lab exam, I drank milk in the morning and my lactose intolerance kicked in right at the start of the test. Mentally, I was passing away and adjusting myself wherever around the lab table to ease the stress. My hand was writing while my brain fan the flames inside of me. I didn’t know or care if I was right or wrong. I just preached what the dozens of mock practices had told me before. By God’s miracle, I finished the entire paper with a minute to spare. At least five times did I have to flush the toilet when I finally crawled there.” 

“It was my hardest and softest exam ever taken.” 

She bursts into laughter as her eyes shrink like a typical Asian girl. Looking at her laughter, she looks like someone who would’ve never known what sadness was and forgot how to cry. It’s the same pair of eyes that I’d closely observe brighten up after I mention a joke consciously or unconsciously. It’s the first pair of eyes I truly looked into. 

With no more charcoal, the conversation ran out of gas and halted abruptly and the silence re-emerged. To be very honest, neither of us felt the need to force the conversation. We just continued to gaze upon each other. Little sparks in either our mouths suggested that something might happen but it didn’t. Her face is naturally lit up and her smile warm and genuine. Beneath her face, her youthful body completed a delicate picture. Using my free hand, I grabbed hers and we let it hang between us like a swinging pendulum. 

For a while, it was simply as it was. My eyes exchanging secrets with hers which I wouldn’t know.

“Crystal.”

“Yes?”

“.......Nevermind…….” 

As we continued feasting on each other with our eyes, it didn’t dawn on me this entire time until now. Looking at the train map, it is soon approaching its endpoint. 

“You may want to get off before the last station.” Crystal tells me

“The guy said we can stay until the last stop, no?”

“Who said this train will reach its final destination?” Crystal then took her phone and bonked it on the top of my head.

This is the Crystal I remember and loved: How selfish of her; to want me so badly that she wants me to now leave everything behind for her. Yesterday’s dream was all but a mental preparation. 

I should have always assumed it was coming though. That one of these days, I’m going to have to find out where I want to go and start going from there. I’m not scared of death. Or rather, I just don’t feel I have anything to lose. The process of dying sucks, though now I have the opportunity to make it that little bit more pleasant.

Admittedly, nothing much has changed since the incident. Life moves on and I went along with it. I explored new things, new people, and even a new self. I don’t have any quarrels with the life I have at the present. In fact, multiple have told me before that they had the impression my life was put together and had everything on track. But I also am a dreamer. And only when you rekindle with people from those winter nights do you realize that the ‘you’ they have is the one when you were there taking refuge in their tents and sharing whatever warmth you had with each other. Who I am now is different from the high school version of myself, which Crystal remembers. 

“Are you the first one to try this?”  I asked

“I don’t know,” Crystal says. 

“What do you think is the most important thing to you in life?” I ask. 

“Hmm, it's got to be enjoyment. What’s the point in going through the motion of things if you’re not having fun or deriving any pleasure from it.”

“I miss you.” Without any context or build up, I declared for her to know because she needs to know. Still feeling her hand, I grip it even tighter. Some innate force was pushing it from my core until I just had to say it. 

“I miss you too,” Crystal says. “That’s why I brought you here.” 

As she says finish, the train slows down to alight at what it didn’t know would be its last station. We stood stationary, I’m holding her hand as tight as I could, as though she was the one that was going out and not me. Crystal looks at me and then lets her eyes peek to the right, inviting them and I to face the door, finally they return to see me still standing. Neither of us say anything, staring into each other’s eyes, we tell each other nothing and everything. The train door closes and we continue rolling.

“What made you do it?”

“Because that’s what I ordered when I came here. I don’t see any point in choosing otherwise. I don’t like you. I love you. And even if this next life has you living in a cardboard box, I'll still come and find you.” I carry on.

“It’s like for the longest time we just co-existed together, a plus b. And then this locomotive bullshit happened and it whole squared us. I became a² but then you became b² and you were no longer there. And for the longest time, I believed that was that. But then the train went ‘Choo Choo Chew’ and I remembered. There are three types of people in this world. Those who know, those who don’t know, and those who can make magic together. And whatever happens next, the look on your face, that's 2ab.” I adjust our fingers so that they are now interlocking each other. 

Beneath us, the ground began to shake. We held onto each other and soon after the cabin turned dark and I couldn’t see her face. Yet even in the complete darkness, it didn’t matter. I could still look into those sparkling eyes and see the world.