The Traveler

A Story by Kelsey

A woman on a train meets a strange and mysterious young girl that has no destination.

It was many years ago when I met a strange traveler on a train. A traveler with no name and no destination. She just sat quietly looking out of the window, never making eye contact with anyone. I saw the sad reflection of her face in the glass and decided to sit next to her. "Hello, Its beautiful scenery isn’t it?" I said. She slowly turned to me with sad eyes and a gentle smile. " Yes it’s very beautiful. I never do tire from looking at it either." Now that I could see her face she was very young, about 19 or 20 years old, and had very pretty and mysterious light green-blue eyes. I could tell she was foreign but she spoke very fluent German." Your pretty young to be traveling all alone. Are you going to see your relatives in the next town over?" The girl looked at me with a mysterious and distant expression and shook her head. "No. I have no destination and I have no home with relatives. I left that behind me a long time ago." I was very puzzled at this point. How could someone have no destination to go to? " What do you mean?" I asked in a very confused tone. "It means exactly what I said. I have no destination, no home and no country to belong to. I am a traveler that belongs to nowhere." "But you have to belong to somewhere! For example your voice has no accent. So you must come from somewhere in America. Maybe Arizona or California? Am I right?" She just simply looked at me with an astounding patience as I spoke. When I was finished speaking she said this, " Did it ever cross your mind that I might be faking having no accent? I could come from anywhere. England, France, Germany, Mexico, America, Australia, even Africa. As I’ve said before I belong to nowhere." "Really? You mean to tell me that you don’t want a home?" She closed her eyes at that point and relaxed her body. Then she slowly opened her eyes. " No, I’m traveling not just to see the scenery Im also traveling to find a home. I go to each town and spend no longer than a week at each one. I meet the people and see different cultures and its always very lovely but I still haven’t found the ideal home for me yet. " As she said this I noticed that she had two bags with her. One was very large and laid on the ground next to her, it probably carried her clothes and other more necessary things in it. While the second bag was much smaller and was held by the girl with a great tightness. It was a mystery to me as to what was in that bag and I longed to know what was contained in it. It took a long time for the girl to fall asleep and when she did I planed to see what was in the bag. She held onto the bag with a tight grip but I eventually got it from her. When I looked into the bag I was shocked greatly. The girl had presented herself as a very lonely, distant and mysterious girl that seemed to have no feeling towards the ones she had left behind. What I found had contradicted her personality greatly. I quickly put the bag back into her arms and she snuggled it again. I tried to fall asleep but it was very difficult with the revelation I had found. I’m not sure when I had drifted off to sleep but I was awoken by the girl. "You saw didn’t you?" said the girl looking out the window. "Y-yes I did see. Im sorry but I was just so curious." The girl turned to me with an understanding smile. "I suppose its ok if you saw. You are only a stranger after all and besides I’ve been driven before by curiosity as well. So its alright." I thought for a moment and decided to ask the big question that had been on my mind for a while. "Why did you leave your home?" The girl was silent for a second and then lowered her eyes to the ground in front of her. "Whenever I would get lonely I always thought about leaving on a train in the middle of the night. I would take all my money, my parents money and all my sisters money and leave. And one day I got so lonely that I did just that. I was never very close to my parents and not too close to my sister either. The more arguments, scandals, and conflict they created the more sick, nervous and distant I got. They just caused me pain and they couldn’t even see it. I suppose they were both too arrogant and selfish to see how distant I had gotten from them. But I don’t hate them. I just didn’t feel anything towards them anymore. I felt no sympathy, empathy, anger, or sadness for them. So I left them behind. I’ve been searching for a simple peaceful place ever since." I could see that the girl was near to tears but didn’t try to hide her melancholy from me. I was taken aback by the whole story that she told me and I suppose my face showed it because when the girl was done she just looked at me with a sad distant smile. The train soon came to my stop and as I was getting off I had just one more thing to ask her. I turned to her as I was moving into the isle and she looked up at me and smiled. "Goodbye stranger. Its very nice to get all that off my chest. I feel so much better now." Shyly I asked, " I have one more question for you before I leave." By this point I had inched my way into the isle and was being pushed to move forward. "Why did you try to cure your loneliness by isolating yourself from all your family and friends?" I could see the girls smile turn into a frown as I said this. She looked as though she didn’t know the answer to my question and it seems as if she had never thought to ask herself this. I saw her lips starting to move but I was pushed onto the street before I could hear her answer. The train started to move again and I watched as the girl looked at me through the closed window. I haven’t seen her since then. I sometimes go to the train station to see if I can spot her in one of the trains windows and also to sit and think for a while. I wonder if she ever found the home that she was looking for. Maybe she found it in the next town over or maybe, just maybe, she went to see her family and friends again. Its very unlikely that she would return to her original home but the pictures of her friends and family, birthday cards and year books that I found in her bag seems to prove otherwise. Still the one question that alludes me to this very day is the one she never answered. Or at least the one I never heard. That was the first and last time I ever saw her frown. "Honey, are you ready to go?" asked my husband. "Yes I’m ready dear. I’ll be right there." "Ok I’ll be waiting for you." I smiled and he turned and led the kids away to the house. I got up and looked one last time at the train tracks. As I went to join my husband and my children a train passed by. I could hear the sound of it coming but I didn’t look back to see who was looking at me. Maybe the girl really hadn’t found a home after all.