November

November was also a place.

You wouldn’t find it on the map, however. It functioned as a boundary between two towns whose enmity was so great that they refused to have their lines touch, even on paper.

The journey there was mostly uneventful, except for that part of the trip where the train had to pass through a tunnel. That was what the conductor said anyway, when he held his hand out for my ticket.

“The ride will feel interminable in that tunnel. Must be why those guys who made it called it ‘The Endless.’ Some sense of humor. This your first time going?”

I nodded. I hated tunnels. I couldn’t breathe in them.

I was on that particular train for work, and while I was grateful for a steady job at such a young age, it was a thankless and miserable one, constantly putting me in the middle of the most unpleasant situations in the most wretched of places. For this errand, my employer, who I had only ever talked to on the phone, said I simply had to make it to November, and that I’d get final instructions there.

The train was reasonably full. Seated next to me was a decrepit old man in a blue coat, the kind of shade you wouldn’t soon forget. I wondered why he didn’t have a companion, and I was slightly concerned that he would need my assistance at some point, and I really couldn’t be bothered.

For hours, there was nothing to do, so I stared out the window and watched the landscape speed up alongside the train. It shifted from the granite haze of the skyline to errant clusters of trees to an unbroken line of fields, green and lush in parts, and yellow and parched in others. As we sped farther and farther away from inhabited territory, the scenery lazily shed its coat of colors, revealing a thick stripe of earth and rocks, resonant and repeating, earth, rocks, earth, rocks, earth.

“Brace yourself,” I heard from my right. It took me a few seconds to realize that the old man had spoken to me. His voice seemed to come from far away.

Everything looked foggy and indistinct all at once, like I was wine-addled and watching the world through thick, translucent glass. The light in the passenger car began to bleed out. Strange. Last I checked, it was 10 a.m.

“What’s happening?” I asked, turning to the man. I tried to focus on his face. His eyes and mouth were swirling, abstract, like a day-old palette left to melt under the scorching sun. I put my head in my hands, the nausea crawling up my insides, hooks on its feet.

“Brace yourself,” he said again.

“For what?”

“For that.”

I looked up and peered ahead. I didn’t see it at first. And then I did.

How would I describe it?

It was like an ancient predator sprawled on its stomach, waiting and looming, then unfolding excitedly at the smell of blood, growing bigger and huger and longer and taller, a pitch-black hollow, a shadow with a mouth.

It terrified me—this tunnel that machines long gone had pierced into the tender belly of the mountain.

I realized then that we were leaving daylight behind, the train tilting slightly to the right as it pushed forward. The morning seemed to wink at me, and it was like a flame flickering its last in the dark, then blowing itself out.

The sound of the wheels against the rails, loud and almost comforting just minutes ago, was falling silent, like a cosmic hand had reached out and turned down the volume of life itself.

I began to hyperventilate.

Nothing—not the oddities of traveling, the missed planes and mishaps, the fearsome strangeness of new faces and new destinations, the desolation of hotel rooms, the cultural intersections, the winding roads and dead ends, the happy accidents, the actual catastrophes, and the vicious, devastating repetition of everything—could prepare me for this nightmare.

“What is this?” I gasped.

No one answered. My voice sounded small, a remnant of an echo.

I couldn’t see a thing, not even my hand in front of me, so I held my arm out, swiping at the dark, trying to feel for the man beside me. He wasn’t in our seat.

I dropped to my knees in a panic and crawled out into the aisle, trying to grasp at luggage, or shoes, or shins. There were no things, no people. It crossed my mind that maybe the train had met with some disaster, that I was the sole survivor, and that all this was just a confusion of sensation and perception, visions of a slowly dying body. But there was no debris around me. All that was left was air, and even that was going, too.

“Hey! Anybody there?” Silence.

“Hey!”

“HEY!”

I forget how many times I called out before I started screaming.

Suddenly, like nothing was amiss, the sun was high up in the sky again, free from gravity, and the train was pulling up into the next station.

I was still on my knees, so I stood up slowly, grimacing. Every inch of me felt foreign, loose and insubstantial, and I hurt all over. The train was completely empty.

I didn’t know what happened—I was badly frightened, covered in a cold sweat, jumping out of my skin. I was on the verge of heaving.

I stepped up to the sliding doors, and stumbled out as quickly as I could. To hell with this job. I was calling my boss immediately. I was going to quit and disappear far, far away. I was going to get into bed, it didn’t matter where, and I was never, ever getting out.

I must have appeared suspicious to the station manager with my crazed eyes and dark muttering, because he hurried after me. “Hey, mister! You alright? You know where you’re going?”

I was ready to fend him off. “Stay away from me! Just stay away. Please.”

A man behind me, polite but authoritative, addressed the station manager. “Joe, it’s alright. I’ll take care of this.”

Joe seemed uncertain, but nodded and headed back to his post.

I hugged myself, barely acknowledging the stranger. I was planning my escape in my head, but I didn’t know where to start without my bag and documents.

“I’m sorry you had to go through all that. But you have to go now.”

Wait. What?

“These are your final instructions.”

He offered his hand to shake mine. His sleeve was blue, the kind of shade you wouldn’t soon forget.

Shocked, I turned to him, and met the eyes of a person wearing my face. It was like looking in a mirror. Except I knew that he wasn’t me, because my horror was real, and his joy was radiant, and very much not mine.

“Thank you,” he said, his voice coming from my mouth, his smile on my youthful face. “Thank you for your sacrifice.”

I caught a glimpse of my hand. It was feeble and gray, light leaking through flesh and bone. I held it up. Through it, I could read the sign I had missed when the train had stopped and everything had changed.

YOU ARE NOW LEAVING NOVEMBER