By 12:00 in the afternoon, I was already at the train station. I did not say goodbye to mom or dad. I didn’t have any friends to say goodbye to. A cold bead of sweat ran down my armpit, and a man bumped into me without saying sorry. A vagrant sat playing the violin on the ground to my right, and I watched as a woman tossed a penny into its empty case. By now, the bead of sweat had made its way down to my hip, uninhibited by my loose shirt. Snapping out of the daze, I wiped the droplet away and clasped my arms together, as if to shield myself from what was to come. Train 12, ready for boarding, said the woman at the intercom. Her office was silent in a harsh contrast to the static rumbling of one hundred strangers outside. Or at least, that's how I imagined it.
Behind me, I pulled the last material things of my old life. The suitcase was surprisingly light, and followed after me obediently onto the train. I sat down on the last seat of the compartment's row, setting my things to the left on the only other seat next to mine. All I had with me was $2000 I had saved over the summer, a winter coat, seven pairs of socks, an extra pair of pants, three shirts, a small blanket, and a book. It will have to be enough, I thought, unzipping the bag and pulling out the book as I waited for the train to depart. It was a strange story about a small girl who gets hopelessly lost in a dark forest one night. Nobody comes to look for her, but the girl isn’t afraid. Eventually, she walks so deep into the trees that she can no longer remember which way she came from. Lost and alone, she realizes that she feels just as at home there in that darkness as she has ever had felt anywhere else; so she decides she might as well stay. The girl comes to live in the forest from then on, and most of the story is about the strange creatures she befriends and the strange monsters she has to learn to avoid in her new life as one of the denizens of the woods.
I had been reading for about 12 minutes when the man who checks tickets came by to check mine. “You’re a bit young to be by yourself, aren’t you?” he said. I shot him the dirtiest, nastiest look I could conjure up, and he immediately withered at my glare, taking my ticket meekly, checking it, and handing it straight back. That’s right, ticket man, just stick to your job and check tickets. Nothing more, nothing less, I thought. The man walked away, and I gave him a final stab with my eyes just for good measure. Once he had finished making his rounds, I looked around the compartment at the other passengers who had since joined. There weren’t many. A little old man sat by himself on the opposite corner of my row, and a fat woman with a sniveling child sat across from me to the left. These were my companions on the train to anywhere, huh? It didn’t seem like we had much in common. I wondered what they were heading to Santa Cruz for - it wasn’t exactly a city for little kids or little men. It wasn’t exactly a city for teenage girls either, for that matter. I wondered who the city was for. I wasn’t exactly sure, or why I had chosen it. I guess it didn’t really matter to me what was there, just that it was somewhere else. I did always like the ocean, for whatever that’s worth.
Hours later, the train arrived at the station. I had managed to sleep a little, but had avoided reading too much more of my book - I had to pace myself to avoid reaching the end too quickly - I wasn’t ready for that just yet. I stepped off the train onto the platform, pulling my suitcase like the woman pulled her child. All around me, I could see sunbeams and tourists. The air smelled of salt and smog and body odor, and I closed my eyes for a moment to take it all in. Again, a man bumped into me, or at least, I assumed it was a man - my eyes were still closed. I heard no violins here, but the buzzing clamor of all crowded places enveloped me warmly. I had always loved being in a crowd. It made me feel like I could be anyone. Nobody knew who I was, so I could be anyone I wanted. What I wanted to be right then was nothing more than what I was. I was happy to be there in that city of sunlight and salt, south of San Francisco. I felt at that moment just as at home as I had ever felt.