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The Millennia Train by Wil Moore


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Their quantum reality seeks only its natural state of change. So forever and before the beginning of time they circumnavigate the infinite while their consciousness' fill the gaps between matter and space.


A woman sits alone surrounded by friends. Her flowing red dress and comfortable blue jeans compliment her slim body. She smiles as she stares out the window and watches galaxies tip toe by. She weeps and the rainy season begins on some distant planet. Nowhere has she felt more comfortable because her seat on the enchanted train is everywhere she wants to be.


*****


The old man continues to wait outside his galactic home. The recollection of his former life fades as he strives to grasp the impossible in front of him. He knows not for which he waits, only that it is a new way for him. A new home. His old one left behind both in memory and in body and he briefly wonders why it is not missed but quickly lets the thought fade along with everything else. Something completely different is coming, he can feel it, something truly remarkable, and even though he stands firmly on nothing, and his eyes show him impossible things, he is not afraid, and somehow, not alone.


A boy appears before him and he is quick to realize he is looking down at himself. It had been ages since he was so small but out here where time is measured in billions of years it seems but a single beat of a heart. They smile at each other. If he is here, something is coming closer.


*****


As the Millennia Train speeds along the edge of time and space its beloved passengers live and die as they will. A tree of destiny in which they may choose their way lay before them. The infinite branches of decision are there for them to navigate. A man in a bowler hat, pudgy with stubby fingers, glares at the spectacle. He smiles involuntarily as if hypnotized by moist and freshly baked cookies. His whole life he'd regretted passing up on his one chance to go to college. His chance to be the architect he'd always dreamed he would be. Now he could make the right choice and live the fantastic life he'd wanted since as long as he could remember.


The Millennia Train pushes on. Forward to the beginning and backward to the end. The trail of thick sooty smoke it leaves behind seems to have a life of its own as it mingles momentarily with the eternal nothingness then succumbs to the void and vanishes altogether.


*****


The old man continues to wait. Now he certainly can feel something and it is definitely getting closer. His drooping face begins to tighten as he looks down at his child self. The boy returns his glance and begins to grow taller. His muscles tone and traces of hair form on his upper lip. The old man begins to shed wait and he feels his bones strengthen. His hair darkens and thickens. The child, now a young man continues to rise. Stubble forms over the lower half of his face. Finally the two men meet at middle age. They smile and nod at each other. Then as if it were the most natural thing in the world, they step in to each other's space.



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