Zhanna Slor - At the End of the World, Turn Left

“I don’t know, man, do I look like a crusty to you?”

“Sort of.” I let my glance fall over his ripped black jeans and boots and stretched-out black t-shirt of a metal band he once drummed in.

To my surprise, Liam laughs. “Do you know how many times I tried to tell people how funny you are? No one believed me.”

“Would it be online?” I ask. “The schedule?”

“No, it would not be online,” he says, still laughing. “These guys guard their train manuals like gold. You better just go now and hope for the best.”

My brain works quickly, despite the mix of emotions I’m now feeling; excitement, relief, anxiety, exhaustion. I remember from old friends of mine that the yard to catch a freight train is about three miles south, somewhere near Second St., past downtown. I have no idea how I am going to get there at night. I am busy trying to mentally coordinate bus schedules and cost of fares nowadays when I hear Liam clear his throat. “Fine, fine, I’ll drive. Just don’t ever say I never did anything for you.”

Relief blooms in my chest. Maybe I hadn’t been entirely crazy to like this guy. “Thanks, Liam. I mean it.” I turn to grab my stuff and put on my shoes. I take my phone just in case, and a charger too. It may be dead, but it’s better to have it on me. Worst case I can always find a nearby store or restaurant with an outlet to charge it. Or maybe I’m scared to be without one, like everyone else. The new adult-version of a security blanket. It’s crazy how quickly you can get used to things. Not that long ago the idea of a phone you could carry in your pocket would have sounded like a trinket out of the Jetsons.

Once I’m in the hallway, and the door is locked, Liam puts an arm around me, and squeezes. I let him. “You’re lucky Melanie is still gone,” he says. And I’m so relieved he found Anna I don’t even ask him what I’ve slowly started to suspect: that Melanie isn’t just on a weekend getaway.

That she is, perhaps, gone for good.

It’s after ten-thirty when we make it to the trainyards. By then my nerves are totally frayed, my heart beating into my chest so rapidly I’m unsure how Liam doesn’t hear it. I’m not exactly a fan of dark, abandoned fields, or approaching groups of strangers in general, and here I am about to do both. I wish I could tell my dad the lengths to which I’m trying to help him—help Anna, really—but I know already I can never relay any of this to him. One heart attack was enough.

“You need to relax,” Liam says, laughing. “They’re like dogs; they can smell fear.”

“Hilarious.”

“Not a joke, actually.”

The moon is full now and slightly ominous, the wind cold and making the van sound haunted with its wails. I continue, unsuccessfully, trying to force down my panic. “How about you come with me then?” I ask Liam, finally.

He shakes his head, grabs a cigarette out of his coat pocket. I catch a glimpse of something long and shiny tucked under his shirt—a knife maybe? Part of me wishes I’d thought to bring something like that; David would have insisted, had he been around. “This way is funnier.” Then he lights the cigarette and turns off the car. “If you’re not back in fifteen, I’m leaving you here.”

“What a gentleman,” I say, and get out of the car. I’m officially on my own.

As I walk through the field, I tell myself they’re just kids wearing strange uniforms, filled with strange ideas about the world; lost, maybe, but nothing to be scared of. They’re no different than those who had come before them, people I’d known and talked to. There’s no reason to be so nervous! And yet, when I look down, my hands are shaking.

I slide my hands into my coat and focus on the task at hand: making it through the field without falling on my face. I don’t have a flashlight, so I meander bumpily through the field to a wall of trees, beyond which, I understood from Liam, is where I would find everyone. I’m lucky there’s a full moon. I can’t see any train tracks nearby, but I imagine they must be close since I can hear the low rumble of cars moving slightly back and forth, as if being adjusted into place on a rail. Eventually I get far enough to hear some hushed voices. Some are laughing, others deep into conversation. I walk over more loose branches and wet leaves until finally, a group of figures emerges into my view, along with a very strong smell of something flowery mixed with smoke.

“Is that a bull?” someone asks right away, starting to get up. I almost laugh at this, that they imagine I am some hired security guard meant to find them. My night vision is so bad I can only see the shapes of things, not what they are. Or maybe that’s been my problem with everything since I returned. Otherwise, shouldn’t I have found my sister by now?

“It’s just some girl,” a man’s voice answers, letting out a long cloud of smoke. From my brief experiences with drugs, it looks like they’re smoking opium. I see a lighter meet the edge of a butter knife, underneath a hollowed-out milk carton. Someone moves over and puts their lips over the spout and inhales. Another person stands up and heads my way. A girl in black overalls and dreadlocks tied up in a beige bandanna. Not my sister.

“Are you lost?” the stranger asks.

Frozen in my tracks, I look around, hoping that my eyes can focus enough to find my sister’s face. Or not. It will certainly be better if I don’t find Anna here. Would I even recognize her in this condition? With a mess of unwashed hair instead of curls, an assortment of torn black clothes instead of purple bows and purple shoes? I’d watched her grow from adolescence into adulthood online. I knew it when I left. There is always a cost of leaving—my parents had sacrificed home and community, my grandparents had lost everything they’d ever owned and known over and over again—and being distant from my entire family, including my sister, was the cost I’d agreed, silently, to pay. It was the cost I’d wanted to pay. I was never going to stay in Milwaukee. If only I had stayed in touch with her more, though. Maybe I could have convinced her to join me in Israel. Standing there in the dark, surrounded by half-empty beer cans and aggressively angsty homeless youth who liked to imagine themselves vagabonds or perhaps superheroes on the right side of history, I can’t help but wonder if leaving had been worth it. I’d had friends who rode trains when I lived in Riverwest, sure, but it was more of an amusing anecdote, not a decision, not throwing your life away. And none of them had ever been junkies .

But no, there’s no point in wondering. After what happened to June, nothing on earth would have kept me in Milwaukee. For so long, until David really, who had experienced far more death than me and spent years telling me it wasn’t my fault until I finally believed it, I blamed myself. It was easy to do, since everyone else had. Would I blame myself now, too? For the condition I might find Anna in?

Suddenly I hear a familiar voice call out to me, and relief blooms in my chest for a brief moment. Then it turns back into dread. Because when I turn and look towards who has called my name, my eyes fall on Tristan.

Just Tristan, no Anna.

He stands up, wiping his dirty palms on his dirty jeans, and heads my way. I find myself at a loss for words. I was so certain she would be here. There are 7,000 languages on earth (almost 1,000 of those are in Papua New Guinea alone) and yet, it’s hard to find the right ones when you need them the most. There’s a language in Botswana that consists almost entirely of five clicking sounds. So many options and yet we humans are constantly failing at communicating properly.