The Amber Burning

I don’t know why I’m writing this, anyone who reads this is going to think I’m insane. Maybe I am. Damn it. So I’m just going to write it down. Because if I don’t I’m pretty sure it’s going to violently burst out my head. I need this out my brain.

So, first, I guess I should say writing isn’t my strong suit. I kind of hate it actually. How full of yourself do you have to be to just sit and write? It’s all vile and conceited really, when you get down to it. I like reading though. And I like reading about wizards. Everyone has an opinion on wizards. I don’t care. I like wizards.

I’ve been trying to die since I was 13. But I’ve always been too afraid. And I always found that kind of funny. I don’t want to live, I don’t want to die, I’m caught in some purgatory between them, never really trying too hard at doing either. Anyway, between living and dying, there are a few strange quirks you pick up along the way. When I was 15, long after I had broken a light trying to hang myself with my school tie but not so long after I’d tried cutting myself and got scared from all the blood, I started walking to the train station. One day I was going to throw myself on those tracks. Not in front of a passenger train, but one of those massive freight trains that speed right through the station and look like they couldn’t stop even if they wanted to. But, of course, that’s just a bit too terrifying. A few steps off the platform and I’m gone. I don’t know why being nothing scares me but whatever little, worthless, shit I count for always kept my feet on the station and my head from being turned into bloody pulp.

Still, I started to go to the train station. Every day, eventually. And I’d just stand there, watching the trains rush by. After a few weeks, I started sitting instead. Making judgy comments to myself about the commuters. And then some weeks after that, I started bringing my books. It was Autumn, in the afternoon, and I was sat reading. I’d not looked up at the trains in some time, I was somewhere far, far away from them. But, when I wasn’t looking, a train had pulled in. Off its passengers came, though I saw none of them except for one old man. He sat next to me and I realised something very strange. I’m 19 now. This man must have been in his 70s. Possibly older. But there was a strange kinship between us. Hell, he looked like me. But, with the twisted distortions of time, I realised it was yet another one of the universe’s mockeries. Every facet of my face that I hated, each one that I had pored over with disgust in the mirror, was amplified here tenfold on the face of a haggard, decrepit old man. He was me, if my chin had disappeared far into my neck, if my hair was thin and straggly, grey instead of black, and if my nose had never stopped growing.

We were sat together for a while, I soon returned to the land of wizards (though it had now lost some of its escapist appeal); he just sat. We said nothing to each other. That was until the old man stood up suddenly and, glancing at my book, said, “Do you want to know how it ends?”

I met his eye, looked at him directly and said, “No.”

“Yeah, I never found out either.”

And then he just walked off. But I noticed the train he’d got off was still here. And the carriage door was still open. And I really can’t tell you what was going through my mind in that moment because, for some reason, I jumped on.

As soon as I was aboard, the doors closed. It was like I jumped in at the last second, but I got the feeling that if I hadn’t got on board it would have waited longer. The carriage was mostly empty, though I could spot some tops of heads. I found a nice window seat, on the left hand side, and the train started moving. I really had no idea where to. There were no trainline infographics and no driver announcing our next stop. Realising I’d left my book behind, I started to fiddle with the chair in front of me. Then, I fiddled with my hands. I soon realised that I had nothing to do but stare outside the window as the train left the station. It wasn’t until after about an hour, when we had long since abandoned the concrete signs of human living, that there was the first sign that this wasn’t just a ghost train. A message came up on the passenger information display. It simply read: “APPROACHING: THE AMBER BURNING”.  

It was the strangest thing. The train never stopped, it never pulled into any station, but the world outside my window seemed to transform. Over a dense forest, the sun came to the horizon; its orange rays melting the leaves on the trees, mixing their colours together like a paintbrush swiping through a freshly painted vista. I took a moment to take in the vision. And then I started crying. Emotion washed over me. It was the same sunset I’d seen a thousand times before, but, for some reason, right then, it was the single most beautiful sight of my life. It was everything I needed, the answer to every unanswerable question. So I cried and I didn’t try and stop it. I didn’t wipe the tears away and I didn’t hold them back. I can’t be certain, but I think everyone else in the carriage was crying too.

A tone came through the train intercom, jaunting the carriage back to reality. The world was normal again and we'd left that enchanted rift. But the air we were breathing was different. We'd taken some of the magic from that place away with us. We sat, silently basking in the experience we'd shared, for the rest of the journey.

The train started to slow down and, wherever we were, I knew it was my stop.

I stood between the carriages, awaiting whatever lay on the other side. I was caught again, not between life and death, but between trepidation and excitement. The fear I felt of what I could meet at my destination was matched only by my desire to see it. The train started to slow down and I prepared myself. The button on the door lit up. I pressed it. The doors opened and I saw… that it was the same platform where I’d gotten on? The book I’d left behind was in the same position, on the same page, on the bench where I was sat. The sun hadn't even set yet. I can’t explain it. But, when I stepped onto the platform, I felt an ache between my shoulders. It was like the weight had come back onto them and was pushing down twice as hard. I felt dejected and had half a mind to walk out in front of the tracks before the train left again. Until I heard an announcement come from inside the train:

“See you tomorrow, Ben.”

And my shoulders loosened a little bit.