Station

I rubbed my sleepy eyes and looked at the calendar to see it was February. How time flies.

The days pass by like a local train, carving out a steady, rhythmic beat as it moves along.
How many stations have I passed already? I am not even sure where I boarded, or where the final stop is.

I have only decided on the station where I intend to get off.
But it is a station that I might accidentally sleep past if I am not careful, one that I am not even sure truly exists.
Is life just an elusive, never-ending journey like that?

There was no one on the platform where I stepped off.
I looked for the station name to see where I was, and it read,
“Past ⇒ Present ⇒ Unknown”.
I see, it is “Unknown,” not “Future.”

I suddenly glanced at the opposite platform, and someone who had been absent just a moment ago was waving at me.
The figure, small at first, gradually grew larger, and I could see them desperately moving their hands, trying to convey something to me.

(What is this feeling?)
A feeling I have experienced somewhere before.
My heart stirred with an emotion I could not put into words.
The moment I put my hands together to form a heart shape, the person gave a somewhat lonely smile and vanished.

I boarded the train again, and after a while, an announcement played over the intercom.
“Thank you for riding. The next stop is the final destination.”
It seems the end of this day has arrived.

How long have I been on this train, I wonder?
Where am I?
I searched for a station sign amidst the hustle and bustle of people stepping onto the pitch-black platform, but this time, it was nowhere to be found.

I caught someone rushing home and asked,
“Where is this?”
The person replied,

“I do not know either. I do not even know if this is the right place. After passing through many tunnels, sometimes speeding along, navigating many curves, and occasionally changing tracks, this is the station I finally reached.”

I found myself strangely convinced by those words.
Perhaps it is okay not to know exactly where I am standing right now.
I do not know where I should go home to today either, but maybe it would be nice to rest for a while in this station building for the night.
After all, I have traveled quite a distance.

Stepping out of the station, a modest streetlamp was lit amidst the freezing cold.
(So there was a light even in a place like this?)
Feeling the scent of an early spring with my senses, I slowly drift into a dream once again today.

(End)