Spirits

“What are you hoping from this?” I asked the woman across who was looking out the train window lost in thought. She glanced towards me.

“Oh, I’m just curious. I don’t think we’ll see anything, really, but I’ve got an open mind.” She went back to looking out into the fog.

“I’ve got questions for them,” the man with a bushy red beard next to her said, leaning towards me. He pulled out a small notebook. “What happens when we die, for starters.”

“I heard they never speak,” the man next to me said. “Some people don’t even see anything. And, of course, you can’t get them on video, so there’s no real proof. Otherwise, everyone would be coming.”

We were on the famous Kinney ghost train, the trump card of spiritualists and a running joke for everyone else. It was said that if you rode this train on a solstice, you could see spirits appear around you as you went through the Kinney tunnel, especially around 9:00am.

I checked my phone: 8:54. They aimed to reach the tunnel right at 9:00am, although I didn’t know how punctual ghosts were supposed to be.

I didn’t believe in spirits but I wanted to believe—not just believe, I wanted it all to be true. I was fascinated by the idea of an unseen world all around us. It would be amazing. But everything I had seen so far seemed like trickery and sleight of hand.

At 8:59, a shadow came over the windows and then we were entering the tunnel. The atmosphere became electrical with anticipation. Five hundred feet inside the tunnel, and the train rolled to a stop.

A breathless minute passed until someone gasped. “There, over by the door.” Everyone stood and craned their necks. I didn’t see anything. Someone pointed to the far end and I turned to look. Nothing.

It wasn’t long before the car seemed to be full of spirits, at least by everyone’s reactions. They were gazing at fixed points here and there with awed expressions. A few optimists were taking pictures or videos with their phones.

“What happens after we die?” the bearded man asked. He was standing with his notebook out, seemingly addressing a point in the middle of the aisle. I couldn’t see anything.

Was this mass hallucination? Self-induced delusion? Why could everyone else seem to see things and I couldn’t? It wasn’t fair. I looked at the woman across from me who hadn’t thought we’d see anything. She was staring around the train car with her mouth slightly open. Was I being pranked and all these people were in on the joke? I slumped back, feeling disgusted and disappointed.

This went on for about twenty minutes as I got increasingly depressed. Finally, I got up and walked to the next car which had a small snack bar. I got a coke and sat at a table next to the window.

A man in a plaid shirt and jeans came over with a cup of coffee. He motioned to the other seat. “Mind if I sit here?” I motioned towards it and he put down the coffee before peering out the window.

“See anything?” I asked.

He shook his head, then sat down. “I always check. It’s my eighth time on this train.” He looked at me and smiled. “Since you’re out here, I’m guessing you can’t see anything.”

“Nah. You?”

He took a sip of coffee. “Yes, although I know it takes some people more time than others.”

“But why? If something is real, it should work all the time, right?”

“I have no idea,” the man said. “All I know is if you really look, you’ll find. Don’t give up.”

“Yeah, sure,” I muttered. That was fine to say but I still felt the sting of all these other people having this apparently amazing spiritual experience while I wanted to but couldn’t.

“Why do you keep coming back if you can see the spirits?” I asked.

“Honestly, I like watching the people, the expressions on their faces, the ways they react when they first see something totally outside their normal reality.”

“So why are you here?” I indicated the snack car.

He shrugged, then grinned. “You looked upset. I figured I’d come try to cheer you up.”

The man finished his coffee, then excused himself. “See you around,” he said, and made his way to the other car.

Ten minutes later, we started up again. A minute after that, and we were back out into the misty morning air.

By the time we got back to the station, I was feeling slightly better. I’d come back in six months and try again. I decided to look for the man in the plaid shirt to ask if he was planning to come back then.

I couldn’t find him. I even went through the whole train after everyone got off. The staff didn’t remember seeing him, but they also weren’t keeping track of everyone either.

The most likely explanation was that I just missed him in the crowd. Still, it occurred to me with a shock that he might have been a spirit. I had only talked to him in the tunnel and had only seen him there. It wasn’t impossible, was it?

Of course, everyone said you they didn’t speak to you and could they really drink coffee? What did anyone really know though? That was what I always found frustrating about anything spiritual,: nothing seemed consistent and while there might be evidence, there was never any actual proof.

If you look, you’ll find, he’d said. Fine, I’d keep looking. I went online and booked my ticket for the next trip, six months away.