The Willow Village train station… Perhaps the place that I have spent the most time besides the library. At least I did in the beginning, back when I still had a little glimmer of hope for escaping this personal handcrafted hell. Not so much anymore, I have pretty much accepted this place as my new life.

The tracks are well-maintained and the platform itself is beautiful. There is not a single misplaced tile. The floor is cream-colored and there is a blue accent on all of the various things you would come across at a train station. The garbage bins are completely empty, I even tossed a cup in one. It was gone when I checked a few minutes later because of course, it was.

Nothing ever really happened there, all that time that I waited at the train station. No trains ever came rolling back this way. I just sat there on that one lone blue bench, staring longingly down those tracks that were seemingly endless…wishing for a way out.

I sat there waiting for an escape that never arrived, desperate for even just any sign of life to arrive. Even an empty train would be fine, just so I could have some kind of proof that this place had contact with anywhere else in the world.

Nothing.

Not so much as a single rumble on the tracks.

This place was a God-forsaken trap. Had there ever even been a train? Did I just wake up here one day? There were tracks… Tracks have to go somewhere, lead somewhere, had to have been set down by someone.

Right?

I finally had enough and broke into the ticket booth. Although broken into is a very loose term here. I lifted the unlocked metal gate and then rolled awkwardly down onto a dusty desk before falling onto my elbow and shrieking in pain. Why do they call it the funny bone if there’s nothing remotely funny about hitting it?

That’s when I noticed it, on the table and covered in a neat little layer of dust, there was exactly one book. A blue binder with the words “passenger manifest” was written across masking tape and slapped on the front of it.

I knew what was in it before I even opened it. It still didn’t make me feel any better to see absolutely no one else’s name on any page, except for mine.

It was written in red permanent marker and it seemed with increasingly erratic behavior. By the last page, it was just a scribble that could have passed for a prescription by a doctor who no longer had time for the construction of the English alphabet.

I rolled out the way that I had come before dropping the gate and grabbing the bag that I had left outside the booth. Perhaps one day there would be a way out of here, but I knew that it would not be found at this station.

I came here peacefully… something in the back of my mind whispered that my exit would not be granted that same luxury.