Don't Get On The Train!

Cleaning out my desk at work yesterday, I found a note. I have no memory of writing it, yet it was in my hand-writing.

"Don't get on the train." was all that was written, along with today's date.

When did I write it? And why would I write such an odd note to myself? Those questions came to me right away, but as the day went on, another occurred to me.

The note must have been in there for months, since that was the last time I cleared out the clutter of papers in my drawers. So how come I found it the day before the date on the note?

Any later and it would have be a moot point, the date having passed, I would not have seen it in time; but in time for what?

Why did I write the note?

As I tried to do my work, my mind raced trying to remember when and why; but nothing. Then my brain started to go off into wild imaginings like: what if I did not remember writing it because I have not yet?

What if somehow, me from the future wrote the note after some terrible series of events happened in the future all starting with me getting on the train, and I am trying to stop them from happening?

I chuckled to myself on that one for a bit, and then I noticed the red spots on the corner of the note. Faded and dried, they could have been red pen, yet they had too much of a brown hue to them for it to be ink.

Possibly coffee, I rationalized. Though, in the back of my head I thought of the fact I hate coffee.

I hardly spoke when I got home after work; I just kept going over the note and what it meant as I ate dinner and tried to watch TV. Through restless sleep I dreamt of a horrible train wreck on the subway and the pain of the screeching impact woke me up so I could not shut my eyes again without picturing the burning wreckage where my mangled body lay.

In an exhausted haze I got ready for work and left the house with a distracted goodbye.

Now, here I stand, waiting for the train to come; I can hear it roaring closer through the tunnels. In my head it is a rumble of dread.

I look down at the note and read its simple message once more.

Do I heed its warning from the future, or is it just some random scribbling I jotted down on the paper and forgot about in my desk?

Looking down the tunnel, the headlights of the train begin to brighten the darkness; like the present, come to bring light to the abyss of the unknown future.

As the doors of the subway car open onto the station platform, Jane looks at the dazed looking man in his suit and tie, carrying a briefcase in one hand and holding a piece of paper in the other. She frowns in disgust as she sees that he has pissed his pants.

Then she sees the poster on the wall behind him and remembers that she wanted to see the movie it is advertising.

"A Thrill-ride of Terror" it reads, "Don't get on the Train! Starts Today!"