Is the beginning of the end

You awake with a jolt, sweating furiously and heart pounding in your throat and playing its drum-like report in your ears. The lights in the train car were turned low, the quiet rumble of the tracks and the swaying of the car exceptionally therapeutic to your very frazzled nerves.

You breathe as slowly and as evenly as you can manage. You look down and find that your hands are shaking, actually shaking.

“God,” you gasp, tilting your head back against the headrest and sucking in a cold breath of air, “that was awful.”

You lean over to where your jacket has fallen to the floor, and pick it up with a still shaky grip.

There’s a thunk and another thunk from the other end of the train car. You peek your head above the seats and see the blonde conductor jogs up to you with a serious look on her face.

“Is everything alright, sir?” She asks, standing over you, hand on the rows of seats and leaning low.

“Yes,” you blurt out, awkwardly trying to make yourself presentable to the conductor, “everything’s fine,” you add, painfully aware of how disheveled you must look to this pretty lady.

“Are you sure,” the conductor says, eyebrow cocked, “I heard you screaming from the next car down and came running.”

“Oh,” you say, feeling your face getting red, “I just had a bad dream is all.”

The conductor’s face softened a bit.

“It was just a nightmare, really,” you say.

“Alright,” the conductor says, “but if anything happens to you do not hesitate to cry out for help.”

“Uhh,” you say, “sure.”

“And if there’s anything that you need,” the conductor says, standing up and straightening out her uniform and looking at you with those green eyes in the gloom of the night lights of the train, “anything you need at all, don’t hesitate to ask, really.”

“Uhh,” you say, “sure, thanks.”

“Good,” she said, and slowly walked away, looking over her shoulder at least twice, tossing her ponytail over her shoulder as she does, before passing through the doors to the next car.

“What the fuck was that about,” you grumble, patting your jacket down and searching for your phone.

You go through your jacket, then your pants only to find that the pockets have shrunk in the night.

“The fuck?” You hiss, finding that you can only fit your fingers up to the second knuckle in the front pockets and the back pockets seem tighter too.

You grumble as you get down on your hands and knees, looking under the seat for your phone.

You sit up again, shoving a hand down between the seat in desperation, and then you see it.

“What the―,” you say, picking up a brown satchel bag, from the seat beside yours and turning it over in your hand. You absentmindedly pop it open and look inside it. Darkness. You feel around inside it blindly, feeling unfamiliar shapes. You reach up and turn on your overhead light.

The incandescent light turns on with a satisfying clack. You look into the satchel bag and see unfamiliar things. A coin purse full of money you’ve never seen before. A package of mints from an unfamiliar brand. Receipts from stores and places that you’ve never heard of before. A half full carton of cigarettes, with the name Erie Canal branded across the front. A billfold that isn’t yours. You flip it open, and see an unfamiliar identification card, with a little black and white picture of you with first name John, last name Brown.

“What the fuck?” You laugh out loud, very confused. You read past your birthdate and come to a line that reads Citizenship: People’s State of Kansas. You snort. “What the fuck happened to Kansas?”

Feeling confused and increasingly amused at the ridiculousness of your situation you stand up, finding that the train car you are in is completely empty, only making the whole situation feel even more surreal.