Through the Alps

   The train’s movement woke me up as it pierced through the longest tunnel in the route. The trip from Italy to Germany can be quite annoying because of that, although you get to check out some beautiful sights in between the tunnels, so it’s not that bad. The very dim lights of the tunnel gave me an eerie glimpse of the people that were in the same cabin, all of them fast asleep, not disturbed by the movement as I was. It was right then when I heard someone rushing by the aisle, stumbling and then running off.

 I was about to yell and pull the door of the cabin making a lot of noise, but I remembered my friends were sleeping so I stood up and carefully pulled the door open. Once I was standing on the hallway, I close the door again and enjoyed the show the little lights on the floor of the train were doing. They turned on and off and on and off. It made the hallway look like some kind of disco. I looked down the hall but there was no one there, at least not where I could see. I decided to walk in the same direction as the person I had seen.

 I had to move from one car to the other. Apparently most people were asleep because there was not one noise breaking the silence, only the one of the train travelling on steel. The tunnel, I recalled, was so long it could take up to half an hour to traverse it completely. And if I was not mistaken, we had entered it less than ten minutes ago. So walked on knowing that natural light would take its time to comeback. The third car I entered was completely dark; the lights on the floor were not working.

 Then, I saw him. The lights on the tunnel were too weak to actually see anything but his form was noticeable. I stood there, on the entrance to the car and waited for the shadow to make its move. But it didn’t. It just stood there, most likely watching me, until it dropped something on the floor and my curiosity pushed me forward, in order to check the object closer. I walked half way and then the shadow bent its knees and fell to the floor, apparently unconscious. Something was wrong.

 Not only wrong but very wrong. The object on the floor shimmered with the dim yellow lights of the tunnel. It was obviously a knife, the kind you use to cut a steak. I remembered watching those on the restaurant car, a place I had only sat once earlier that day. It was a bit too expensive for me but I did remember watching someone eating a piece of juicy red meat with a knife just like that one. However, the handle on the one on the floor was glistening with dark red blood. Some of the silver edge had stains of it too. It was so strange to see that there, doing nothing but dripping blood.

 The train moved violently and it was then I realized what was going on and how serious it could be. I wanted to tell someone about it but I also realized I hadn’t seen one single person from the train company around the hallways. Neither a security person nor a waiter. There was no one around to denounce such a strange thing happening. Because bloody knives are only found on the floor of trains in novels or movies, but never in real life. What to do in that case, when there’s no one to turn to?

 The shadow then groaned. I got scared, walking back a little, abstaining myself from touching the bloody knife. I was about to turn around and look for someone to help, when the shadow said something. I had no idea what it said, because it wasn’t really articulating words. At least not words I understood. I got closer and the shadow coughed and suddenly looked up. I could not tell if it was a man or a woman, even if it was young or old. But I knew it was someone disturbed, as its eyes were red and mad.

 Then, the shadow spoke once again. I finally understood what language it was speaking but I had no idea what the words meant. I had seen several movies in German and I had even studied a bit of German back in college, but not enough to understand what the shadow was saying. Maybe it was asking for help or maybe it was begging for me to go away. I had no idea, as my trip through Europe had not contemplated helping dying or crazy people in dark trains while traversing a long tunnel.

 However, my instinct told me to help that person. So I got closer and tried to make something out of the words it was saying. By getting closer, I finally realized I was interacting with a young man, maybe half my age. He had delicate features covered by a large amount of very blonde hair. He was obviously of Germanic descent as the eyes that were looking at me were made of a very deep blue, almost the color that ice gets sometimes. Those eyes gave me a shiver.

 I spoke to him in English, asking if he needed any help. He wouldn’t answer, so I decided to speak a little slower. That seemed to do the trick because the young man started nodding violently, his eyes becoming even redder and more insane. It was quite disturbing to watch but not as disturbing as when he stood up and revealed his tainted clothes to me. He was wearing what any boy would ear in the summer: shorts and a stripes shirt. However, both were soaked in the same dark blood that covered the knife. I tied one and two together and realized I had a killer in front of me.

 I started breathing heavily but had to control it because the kid was getting worked up to. I relaxed so he did too. However, he did seem to be breathing a lot heavier than he should. He was obviously scared. Maybe he had killed his mother or father, or maybe a brother or sister. He had done it with a knife he had found close by and he had taken advantage of the tunnel to run away. But they were in a train and there are not that many places were you could hide. Ask Agatha Christie.

 For a moment, I was lost. I had no idea what to do. Yeah, maybe looking for a security agent and giving them the kid would be the smartest thing to do but it also seemed like a very wrong thing to do. The kid was obviously traumatized and maybe he had done what he had done out of self-defense. Maybe he had been bullied by someone or harassed by his family or at least one member of it. There were so many things to consider and reflect on before just running out of that car. It wasn’t simple.

 Then, as if in a dream or a religious movie, natural light filled the space. They had finally come out of that dreadful tunnel and the train was now advancing through the mountains by a large beautiful lake. The view out there was amazing but inside the train things were not exactly that. I realized then, with light, that the young man had not injured anyone else. Someone had injured him. He had blood pouring out of his body from a point around his stomach. It was something of a miracle to see him standing there.

 I finally did what took me so long to do: I ran out of the car and made noise, lots of noise. Finally a security guard appeared and I took him directly to the place where the knife and the boy were. When we got there, the young man had collapsed on the floor, falling on his face next to the knife. Some people on the neighboring cabins had stepped out and were screaming like lunatics. I ran to the boy and tried to wake him up but there was no point. He had bled out to death. I had acted too slowly.

 When we finally got to a train station, the body was brought out and sent the local morgue. Every single passenger was questioned by the police, especially me. I told them every single thing that had happened and they let me go without saying anything. I saw the parents on my way out of that place.

 The train departed later the following day. As curious as I was, I went one more time to the police station to ask about what had happened. Apparently, the autopsy had revealed the wound had been self-inflicted. The young man had committed suicide. I would think of him for the rest of my life.

Someone

   I was like a ghost or something less significant. People were not able to walk through me but they certainly couldn’t see me. They didn’t acknowledge my presence and even if I shouted loud and clear, they wouldn’t even turn to look at me with disgust. Nothing. All my fears have come to pass although, to be honest, this hadn’t been different from the actual truth. Daily, I felt ignored. Maybe that was it…

 Late one night, tired of being overlooked by everyone and for everything, I decided to wish for a life of being absolutely invisible. I had no urge to become suddenly popular because that had never been true and I would feel just out of place if that had happened. I would have known, very fast, that people were lying or at least trying to deceit me to get something from me or to mock me. No, no popularity for me.

 I wished to be invisible, in order to feel actually free from everything that had to do with people. But clearly, I had made a mistake or hadn’t been clear enough about my desires. I just wanted to be able to ignore people, to not feel bad if they looked at me funny or if they said hurtful things. But I believe the word invisible may have been a little too literal. Now, I was a half-ghost or maybe just transparent.

 Somehow, I woke up at school like that and it was very effective as no one looked at me, not for talking nor looking. They just couldn’t see me. The sun outside those buildings, that seemed like the ones from a psychiatric hospital, was shining very bright but it felt cold or at least I didn’t feel any warmth or comfort if I got any close to the windows. I made a couple of people trip and fall, which was funny, but by the fifth time, it had lost all its interest.

 I went down to the cafeteria were I stole some food and ate it but it was simply disgusting. Food, in this state, had no flavor whatsoever. It seemed like chewing cardboard or plain paper. When I got sick of it, I spent most of lunchtime hearing other people conversations. That was fun because; as they had no idea I was there, they would say anything and I found out about some big secrets about people.

 But thinking of it, most of them were obvious secrets. They were only teenagers at the end of the day; they had nothing of real interest to hide. They hadn’t stole anything significant, although some had taken iPods and cellphones from their fellow student’s backpacks. They hadn’t had any crazy relationships either. They were really dull to be honest. Yes, some girls were not virgins any more but that I could have known without my transparence.

 In order to have some fun, I went down to the school’s coliseum and saw several of the guys I really liked play football. But that got too old very fast, as I had no idea what there were doing all the time. I was almost asleep when they all entered the showers. That was the moment I was waiting for so I went behind them and saw them got naked which was the first nice and fun aspect of being practically invisible.

 I could see a lot of behind and penises and their wet bodies as they went out the showers. I loved it to be honest. But it was kind of a disappointing to know that, except a couple, all the rest really look like kids still. No body hair, no big anything anywhere, not even a stubble. I don’t know why I had thought of those though “sports guys” as men when they were clearly not men still. Some of them were really cute but that was it. Besides, like I had a chance with any of them!

 I decided to leave the school and walk home. That would be fun or at least it would be distracting. I had no idea how much time the wish would last so it seemed like a good idea to explore all the possibilities before the effect of the magic was worn out. My house wasn’t too close, nor too far so a good walk was perfect at that moment. As I started to walk I felt, for the first time, I cold rush through my spine. It felt as if icy cold-water travel all the length of my body and it didn’t feel good.

 The best thing to do was to step up the pace and get going. On the sidewalks, as on the school, no one looked at me. I thought they had at various moments but it was because too many people were around me and it was obvious they all couldn’t be seen the same things around. Some people look down as they walked and others looked up, as if checking the rooftops of the nearby buildings.

 Again, I stole things from various stores I crossed along the way: a necklace for mom, a ring for my sister, a videogame for my brother and a nice vest for my father. I held this in various bags and, although it looked as if the bags were floating, no one seamed interested in them nor, again, in me. Maybe, I thought, the spell hadn’t been put on me but rather on everyone else. Maybe it was about them not been able to see me and not me having gone invisible or transparent.

Any which way, it didn’t mattered. I just hoped, for the first time during the day that it wore off rapidly. I didn’t want this anymore. I’d rather be insulted or mocked that altogether ignored. Besides, watching all of those kids and hearing what they had to say when they were with “friends”, I realized they were all just children, all equally scared to death of everyone else. That’s why they say so many mean things. I won’t say they are not to blame but now I can say I understand them.

 When I got home, I left all the gifts on the living room sofa and screamed my family member’s names but, apparently, they were not there. That was very strange as my mother rarely left the house and my brother had to be there from school already. I turned on the TV and watched some cooking show for the mean time but eventually I felt asleep. The day had left me tired and a bit dizzy.

 I woke up to the sound of people cheering and laughing. My family was all reunited, sitting by the table, having what looked like a really nice dinner. They were all so happy, smiling and telling joked and anecdotes about their days. I noticed they couldn’t see me either because I said their names but none responded. I got closer and realized something was off: we normally had a big table, with six spots on it. But this one was round, not rectangular, and was only four seats. Mine was missing.

 I also realized that the gifts I had brought were nowhere to be seen. They seemed to have vanished during my nap. They kept on talking and I got desperate. I shook them and yelled and scream and threw plates and other things to the floor. But hey remained the same: just happy, having dinner. Maybe… maybe that was it.

 Checking my theory, I walked down the only aisle and I noticed my room was missing. Nothing was there; the change was that the remaining rooms were larger. It was as if I had never existed and that was what I was afraid of. What if I wasn’t transparent or invisible? That it wasn’t that people couldn’t see me or just plainly ignored me. What if I had just never been born?

 Maybe that was the way the wish had been misunderstood. I wanted to be invisible to everyone else and what best way to be invisible that to have never been visible, ever? This was too shocking for me and then, again, the icy feeling ran through my body but this time it felt so much stronger. So much that I collapsed on the floor, unable to stand or to keep moving. Besides, I didn’t want to keep moving. I was too hurt.

 I closed my eyes but I didn’t sleep. It was like closing your eyes to encounter a foul dark world behind them, were I kept falling through holes and rings and colors surrounded me everywhere. My mind felt like exploding and my body was still numb. I was only a witness of it all, not capable to do anything to stop myself from falling.

 That was until I opened my eyes again and realized I had been in my bed all the time. I felt my body and the bed sheets and my pillow, impregnated with my smell. It was real. I was real. I was somebody and no one could ever take that away from me.