Storytime with Rachel F Hundred

I jolt awake aboard a moving train.

The rattle of the tracks is loud; the vibration of the train is so familiar. I was just doing something. I wonder when I fell asleep. Did I fall asleep?

I push a hand through my short hair and think again that I really need to get it cut. It feels a little damp like I got caught in the rain. But I don’t remember it raining before…

What was I doing again? How did I get on the train?

I glance toward the window. There is only indistinct countryside which means we could be anywhere.

I catch sight of my reflection. I stare back, shocked.

I’ve always been an attractive man, but I look old.

Is that white creeping into my mink-brown hair? Am I balding?! There are stress lines at the corners of my hazel eyes, carving into deep lines by my wide mouth. I look as white as freshly fallen snow.

I’m only twenty-eight, but I seem to get older with every moment I look at myself.

I yank my gaze away and realise that I am sat at one of the few tables. I’m facing towards wherever we are going.

I rarely sit at the tables on the train these days. I prefer a two-seater where I can sit on the aisle and put my bag on the window seat. I get the space to myself that way.

I finally notice the old lady opposite.

Her grey hair is wispy and dishevelled. She has a long face, wrinkled papery skin with lines criss-crossing everywhere. She’s in an old-fashioned black polyester raincoat with a hood. She smells musty like her clothes haven’t been washed in days. She’s exactly the type of weirdo my usual seat allocation enables me to avoid.

She is knitting. The wool is blue. It reminds me of the lame scarf Ellie gave me, the one we argued about.

Did we break up? I can’t remember.

My head hurts.

I glance back at my reflection and…

Is that a bloody gash on my forehead?! 

I blink and it’s gone…

How did I get here?

“Are you alright there?”

The question has me turning back to my fellow passenger. She’s looking over at me with a frown.

“I’m not sure how I got here?” I blurt out.

“Well, you have a head wound, don’t you, duckie?” She clucks, gesturing with a withered bony finger up at my head, right to where I’d seen the gash.

I frown.

I gingerly reach up and touch my fingers to my skin. There’s a bump under my fingertips, wetness. I lower my fingers to see. They’re trembling. I’m trembling. Blood, bright red and sticky, coats my skin.

“I’m bleeding,” I murmur, shocked.

“Yes, you are.”

The malevolent glee in her voice has my eyes snapping up from my fingers sharpish.

She’s not knitting anymore. She’s sipping tea from an actual teacup, her left hand holding an actual saucer.

There is a broken lamp in front of her.

I recognise it.

The lamp sits on my hall table. It’s an ugly abstract thing made from pink marble. I’ve never liked it. Ellie’s mother had given it to her.

My vision blurs.

For a second, I’m back in the shadowed hall, arguing with Ellie. Her lip is busted open and bleeding. I’m holding her throat with one hand and holding tightly to her dark braid with the other. She’s gasping for breath, her hands claw at my wrist, begging me without words to let her go, her cheeks slick with tears…

The train jolts me back to the present.

My knuckles sting and I look down to find them scraped up and raw.

“Coming back to you now, is it, duckie?”

I ignore her because there is a newspaper on the table impossibly dated for next year. The headline makes me flinch:

‘Eleanor Jackson found not guilty! Killed her boyfriend in self-defence!’

I realise my heart should be pounding, but it isn’t. My breathing should be rapid, but it’s not. I should feel warm or cold, but there is no sense of heat.

I don’t feel anything.

“I’m dead?” I ask in trepidation as I look up to meet the old woman’s gaze.

She doesn’t answer me except to smile cruelly.

I’m dead.

I’m dead and I’m on some kind of train and…

I swallow hard. “Where am I going?”

The old woman raises her hood. “Guess.”

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Copyright Rachel F Hundred 2025.