Story: A Gathering at the Station

Crowds were never this good in the before...

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She was tumbling through a roiling cascade of snowmelt river, laughing, and gasping when she felt the familiar tug like the tail of her shirt getting snagged on a branch.

But she wore no shirt and there was no branch. The roar of whitewater softened to a whisper, and she rode its current up and away to meet a new traveler. But who? She knew the shape of them in the way rain knows the shape of a tree; a touching of drops to leaves with no understanding of the trunk or its roots. But she would know them in time, just as the rain finds the soil and becomes the tree.

He was killing. The bit about the old couple getting it on in the closet of the retirement home was gold. You were as tight as a twenty-year-old. Next time give me a chance to take off my panty hose. The audience roared. He rode the crest of their laughter and was preparing his next joke when suddenly the warmth of the spotlight dipped the stage to black and a hand was gesturing to him from the wings. It pulled him forward, this invisible hand around his heart. What a strange gig. But these were all strange gigs now. Crowds were never this good in the before. 

Then he was at Mac’s on his favorite bar stool where he and Danny critiqued the other comics’ sets and solved all the world’s problems. But Danny wasn’t there. His beer stood on the worn wood of the bar top, half empty, sweating on the cocktail napkin with his tiny scribbles and notes. What was this? Fucking twilight zone. As he stared at the napkin, he realized it wasn’t a napkin but a train ticket. He couldn’t read the itinerary, but he knew it was important. He picked it up and then he was no longer on the stool at Mac’s. He was traveling.

The flame inside the hurricane lamp guttered in the morning breeze that separated the wispy tendrils of fog clinging to the creases and folds of the ancient mountains that rolled out in all directions from her perch. The notebook in her quilted lap was dusted with biscuit crumbs. She swept them away with the back of her veiny, gnarled hand and the loopy scrawl of her words tumbled after, taking to the air, and disappearing with the fog. She followed effortlessly as someone who’s traveled many times before in many forms both real and imagined. It’s Danny. She knew. Then she was holding the wriggling weight of his little body, her fingers laced in the doughy folds of his chubby legs like freshly risen bread.

There was no sadness, only surprise. There was no too soon or too late. Time did not exist. The events and people and memories of a life collapsed like laminated layers of pastry, and you savored them as a whole confection.

When she arrived at the platform, there was a crowd gathered and many still showing up. There was a woman in a wide-brimmed hat, her tanned feet clad in sporty sandals that dripped water onto the concrete. A twitchy man with a wry smile and a large belly smoked a cigarette and leaned against the wall of the station house. There was an old couple holding hands. A young man, all knees and elbows bounced a basketball idly. A lady in the cardigan of a school teacher who’s always cold was hunched over a novel, her bespectacled eyes, only inches from the page. There was her sister, Jean somewhere in her thirties, at the height of her beauty, and their baby brother Christopher in the body of a man with the exuberant expression of a toddler. Jean held his hand as she always had, ever the caretaker helping him understand what was expected of him in any situation.

She knew them all as she knew herself, though her recognition of them in their chosen form was difficult. It required a grounding, a heavy concentration that was foreign and uncomfortable like trying to read the last few lines of an eye chart. Except for Robert, her Robert. He stood apart from the rest, his enormous hands clasped behind his back, his neck craning to look down the track. When he felt her, he turned and smiled that crooked smile. His blue eyes twinkled.

Hello love, you made it. I was worried. It’s Danny, isn’t it?

He knew of course, but it had always been his habit to ask obvious questions. It gave him time to catch up and sometimes to process things he struggled to grasp.

A lot of us here, she said. That’s good.

Yes, he said. It’s too soon for him though, isn’t it?

I suppose it is. He might be frightened. How much longer?

Robert turned to survey the platform as if performing a mental tally. She followed his gaze. There were so many— not hundreds, but thousands, squeezed into the space of the platform. Some were old, some were very young. Some of them, the ones who carried significant pieces of Danny from the before shown brighter, more realized. She knew their connection to the new arrival because she had her own memory of them in the before. But most of the souls gathered were a wonderful enigma to her and evidence of the vast and unappreciated reach of a life in the before. Danny was no celebrity, just an amateur comic who made his living as a salesman. He left an ex-wife and a grown son on the platform in the before. She understood this though she had not known Danny since she caught her train when he was just eight years old. 

Knowing was the gift here. She had only to look into one of the dimmer souls and their memory of her grandson became hers. Here was a woman he had kissed in the backseat of a bus driving through the night from a field trip to Washington D.C. when he was fourteen. Behind her was a disheveled-looking man Danny always stopped to talk to whenever he passed him huddled in a dirty sleeping bag on the sidewalk. There was a kid, one of his son’s childhood friends who had been scared during a sleepover at their house and Danny had soothed him with a warm cup of milk and a series of knock-knock jokes. 

I believe everyone’s here who needs to be, Robert said.

She agreed. They had done this many, many times though the flow of calls had slowed to a drip. She knew eventually they would not be called but allowed to become. The others gathered knew this too and she could feel their appreciation for she had stood on the platform and observed the radiance of those close to becoming. Her reverie was shaken by a disturbance somewhere deep in the gathering. She moved through and between until she was face-to-face with an angry man who had, himself, arrived recently. He had the heaviness of one still holding, still clinched. He had not accepted the gift of knowing and he was suffering. He was spewing bitter accusations, making his case against Danny. In her presence he stopped and became still. 

Come now, she said, making space inside her.

He hesitated, holding fast to his burden but then, no match for the weariness he felt and the promise of peace, he let it go and moved into her and by extension into every other soul gathered. He lingered briefly but like all those who make the trade, he moved on, out and beyond to rediscover the open field of his passion.

Then, the air filled with the throaty call of a train whistle and the tired chuffing shuffle of the engine pulling into its terminal. She had never questioned why it was always a train but knowing this might be her last arrival she thought about it. A train is the perfect metaphor. Everyone understands a train. A train is country and blues and jazz and classical. A train moves from one place to another, and it goes in one direction, at least that was its function in the before. In the after, there was no direction. There were no schedules because there were no destinations. To travel was to move through sensation and feeling and these have always been horses without reins or saddles, even in the before.

The locomotive pulled into the station, decoupled from the lone car it carried, and disappeared into the steam that had powered its journey. There was only one passenger seated in the car, at the back with a hand pressed to the window. She saw the chubby digits of her grandson, but she knew others saw the hand of a capable man. A river paddler, a comedian, a nephew, a friend, a teammate. But they hung back and waited with the bundle of their memories of Danny. She did not wait but willed herself into a pair of shoes— such a funny sensation, but necessary for walking. She stepped into the car.

As she approached, Danny looked up with the same blue eyes of her Robert, only his were filled with fear and sadness. Not the eyes of the baby she held, but those of a 53-year-old man, taken suddenly. She smiled and willed him not to see her, but to feel her— to know her.

Grandma?

Yes, Danny, it’s me.

I’m not supposed to be here. It’s too soon.

I’m sorry, sweetie. Can I sit with you?

Then she was beside him, making her hands so she could cradle his face. In this holding, he collapsed into a baby, and she pulled him into her warmth until he stilled. In the stillness, he became curious, turning his face, once again the salt and pepper stubble cheeks of a man, back to the window.

Is that Monica?

 Yes, Danny, it’s me.

How? Where did my grandma go?

She’s still here. We all are. I’ve missed you. Look at your gray hair.

Her slender fingers combed through his hair, and it was thick and brown again, the color of chestnuts framing the face of a young man with a sunburned nose from paddling all day on the river.

I never thought I’d see you again, he said. 

I know. But here we are. There’s so much I want to show you whenever you’re ready.

Then, he was up and moving down the aisle of the empty car, following her toward the door. He hesitated and she looked back.

I’m scared, he said.

I know, but you won’t be for long.

But I left so much undone. I have to…

Danny, she said, touching his cheek. There’s no leaving and you’ve left nothing undone. You’ll see how it works. It’s all connected. Everything you thought was separate, it’s not.

She felt it all rush through him as he crossed the threshold and she remembered the sensation, the collapsing of all distance and time. The knowing.

The platform was gone, replaced by an open field of wildflowers sloping down a valley to the bank of a broad, slow-moving river.

This is your gig, bro? 

The comic was next to his newly arrived friend. Danny turned and smiled.

Mike, they let you be here?

Um, yeah, asshole. You think you’re special? 

No, I don’t.

Doesn’t matter, Mike said. None of that matters here. Everything you did or didn’t do, it’s like… I don’t know. You already feel it, right? 

I guess so? I feel less… and more at the same time.

That’s it, my friend.

Why did you come? Danny asked.

I don’t know. I’m still learning how it all works.

There’s so many here. I had no idea.

You touched a lot of people, his grandmother said.

She felt his confusion. The knot of it she knew would loosen in time.

Don’t worry, Danny. You will understand and until you do, I’m here with you. We all are.

Then, Danny was on the river. He was floating above it on his back as the clouds passing overhead reflected in his eyes and on the water which he had become without knowing.

About the Story

I’ve thought more about death and dying this past year than I ever have before. It would be easy to blame

Chloe Hope

for her excellent newsletter “Death & Birds,” but that wouldn’t be fair. It could also be the massive number of souls who have been separated from their bodies because of the atrocity in Gaza. I won’t go into all my personal reasons here, but if you’re curious, you can check out my post back in March:

Death and Other Possibilities

The writing of this story came quickly — two days to be precise, though I had been thinking about it for over a month. By thinking I really mean feeling because that’s what this story is to me. I spend a lot of time in my brain so a vacation into emotional climes is helpful for me to stay balanced.

I’m more proud of this story than most things I’ve ever written. It did the thing for me that reading other great writers has done in my life. It took me to a place I knew existed, but had never been able to name before. I hope it does that for you. I also enjoyed reading the story and composing music for it. I’ve been particularly inspired by

FogChaser

and his most collaboration with

Elle Griffin

, setting music to her novel. Nothing brings me more satisfaction and joy than combining the things I love: music, writing, and performance to create a world for you to step inside and lose yourself.

What Did You Think?

How did this story make you feel? Did you have a favorite passage? Did anything seem confusing or challenging to you? I’d love to know.

If you did enjoy the story, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. I do this work because I have to. It’s a matter of survival and a labor of love, but it does not pay the bills without your help. Thanks for your consideration.

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