The train tracks appeared out of nowhere, slicing up the homogenous blue ocean into two dichotomic pieces. White waves washed onto the steel gently while shreds of green seaweeds tangled up the barnacle-covered iron bars. The wooden planks in between were mostly rotted by salt as the shapeless water drilled holes into their soft, soaked surfaces. The railway didn’t turn. Despite years of corrosion, it still maintained its straight posture, traveling from one endlessness to the other in a collected manner, with the two ends approaching the infinity of the ocean.

Calypso was not at the top of the clock tower when it hovered silently toward the train tracks. In fact, she was in the maze of books at the bottom of the tower, curled up in some cushions while reading a diary covered with colorful rock-band stickers. The pages were yellow and some even molded, but she could deduce that the owner, despite the rough circumstances, tried their best to preserve the diary. It was many pages of black-and-white illustration scratched with an ink pen, separated by poorly handwritten paragraphs, describing what the owner’s life was like.

The clock tower slowed down its pace as it drew closer and closer to the train tracks. It casted a circular underneath the hot noon Sun, but despite the blinding light the air was cool and fresh. Lumps of white clouds wondered lazily in the sky.

There was a page with a window drawn. One with a CD player (although Calypso had not the slightest idea what that was). One with an In Rainbows artwork. And one with the interior of a house. Words of complaint of their life written in a cynical but humorous tone were scattered in between. From the yellow pages Calypso was able to know they went on a five-day trip to a mountainous area, of which the owner seemed to be both happy and annoyed. They said that the tour guides were insufferable because of their Machiavellian style, but their friends grew ever closer. Calypso, for the first time of her life, felt a strange sense of envy. For her, friends were nothing but a foreign concept, as much as love; her stoic lifestyle had nonetheless stripped her of the intricate human feelings one was born to have.

The owner was an interesting but contradictory person. They would aim to finish a book (One Hundred Years of Solitude, which Calypso, after hours of searching, finally found a copy behind on the bookshelves) during this trip, but when they finish, they would complain how the book was so well written that they wished it goes on forever. Murakami, Calypso thought, they would love Murakami. Maybe they had already read his work.

The clock tower slowly moved along the train tracks, hovering several meters above it. It spoke to the splashing waves in a whisper through the wind, as the entirety of the ocean would hold its breath to listen. Hermit crabs washed onto the tracks dug into the wood planks, creating homes for themselves. Oysters opened their shells into a large crack and inhaled the fresh air. The clock tower continued its movement. A small spot appeared at the horizon.

Calypso adjusted her posture and turned in the pile of Persian-pattern cushions. She became very engaged in the diary, more engaged then in Murakami’s books. Maybe it was because the diary was so intimate; through reading it you would imagine yourself as the person writing the diary. It was like a window to someone’s life Calypso could not possibly have lived. Or maybe it was because of the owner’s vivid imagination accompanied by the illustrations. They wrote about their life, but also millions of broken paragraphs of stories, legends, and tales. There was a paragraph about a train track cutting through the ocean as a man, listening to radio, would be on the platform waiting for his train that would never arrive. Or a paragraph about a person’s memory of himself in the Central Park and Iceland. They were all written in their poor handwriting, with some letters so skewed that they became codes need to be deciphered. 

She was not sitting by a window when the clock tower traveled along the tracks, for only two small circular openings were carved in the library. So, she could not possibly have seen the tracks, or the small dot on the horizon that the clock tower was approaching.

The clock tower stopped and started descending. Calypso clearly felt the movement, as any slight change in the tower would trigger her curiosity. Her heart would pump more blood, her veins would twist, and her iris would widen; through touching any part of the clock tower she could know every bit of its intentions but could comprehend none of it. She grabbed the diary and rushed to the top of the tower, where the huge clock face and metal frames were located.

When she arrived, she saw the tracks. The hand clenching on the diary grew tighter. The clock tower continued its movement toward the dot, which was growing more like a rectangle. She was traveling closer to the dot. It was a platform.

The train platform was nothing out of the ordinary if placed in a city like Tokyo. But when located in the middle of the ocean near an endless train track, Calypso could not help but to reread the diary again. An illustration, with dark, smeared lines, outlined the exact scenery she was seeing. She flipped a page. Twisted words described the station with an intensive level of detail. The white, rectangular marble platform with glistening metal poles on both sides supported a cover, casting a shade on a wooden bench located underneath. A board, with posters and maps worn out by the salty wind and water pinned onto it, stood near the bench. Waves sometimes splashed onto the platform, creating ripples on the white, smooth tiles. Barnacles covered the submerged surfaces. If a train were to arrive, the platform would be the perfect place to board it.

The clock tower descended even more, with only the top floor of the clock face still out of water. It resided across the tracks, facing the platform. Calypso stood on the curved metal rim and saw a man sitting on the bench with a curious looking device.

She stepped forward and tiptoed in midair with both arms extended out, carried by the wind. Calypso set foot on the white tiles carefully and looked back at the clock tower, which was several meters away. The man opened his eyes and looked at her; for him, she looked no different from an angel. Her white speckless dress were wings of an albatross, and her clear blue eyes contained all of the oceans ever existed. He put the device with a long antenna aside.

He was neither old nor young, for his facial features were a combination of every possible age of man. His skin was smooth, but wrinkles appeared on them with each movement of muscles; his eyes so clear and young, but the stare was as deep as from an old man. He wore an old, stained shirt, the colors of which faded into null from the constant washing of the sea winds. The device beside him had a long, metal antenna. Just like exactly how the diary described.

“The angel has arrived; it seems like her. I have waited for so long for a train but did not expect a visit from an angel.” The man murmured.

Calypso shook her head and laughed. “Angel? No, you…you have mistaken. I am only a girl from Crete.”

“Crete? I see no station named after that.” The man pointed towards the map on his right, which was slightly desaturated from the exposure to sunlight and wind. “You must have come from another piece of water, where the tracks don’t reach. But I have been waiting for too long to aboard a train and start my journey.”

This man talks like exactly how the man in the diary would talk. Incredible but so uncanny. Am I living in a diary? Calypso thought.

The man turned on the device beside him. A cluster of voices flow out of it.

We are sorry to announce that the 21:30 National Express service to District VI is delayed by approximately 40 minutes. Please listen for further announcements. The next train to arrive at platform 16 is not in passenger service. Please do not board the next train at platform 16. This is a platform alteration. The 21:55 Underground service to National Technology Institute will now depart from platform 20. The next train to depart from platform 11 will be the 21:49 National Express service to District III. This train is formed of four carriages. Platform 11 for the 21:49 National express service to District III. Platform 7C for Stonia, the 22:18 Solarin Express service from Sprulisa. This train will terminate here……

Calypso’s eyes widened when she heard all the weird sentences flow out endlessly. The man seemed to be eased by the voices and stared into the distance.

“What are those voices talking about?”

The man turned to face her. “Those are train announcements from every dimension possible. They are what the railways across all universes are working on right now, at this instant.”

“All the universes? How many are there?”

“Who knows? Maybe a billion or maybe just two. Those announcements are what give me a determination to wait here. Because, you know, across the different worlds trains arrive and depart; and I think, just maybe, one day a train will finally appear on the tracks and carry me away.”

“But where are you going?”

“I don’t know. Anywhere. It’s a runaway of my current life.” He stared at Calypso and questioned. “What is that thing you are holding?”

She handed him the sticker-covered diary. But after that, she instantly regretted doing so; for now, the diary was becoming something so integrated in her that she dared not to give away. Nevertheless, she sat down beside the man and started reading the diary together with him. After some while, he pointed onto a sketched picture. It was of the exact train station they were on, by the side of an infinite track.

“There are us. Inside and outside the pages of this book.”

He then closed the book and placed it on his lap. Calypso reached out to the diary, but the man grabbed it forcefully and threw it into the ocean. With a gentle swing, the diary disappeared with a tiny white splash of seawater, sinking under the waves.

“Please.” The man said to the slightly disturbed and angered Calypso. “It has things that shouldn’t be deciphered. They haven’t come yet for its true meaning to arise above the water.”

“It’s not Sanskrit. It’s not the scrolls left by Melquiades.”

“We’ll see.”

Calypso left the platform and flew onto the top floor of the clock tower. The man was still listening to the radio and train announcements. The night was slowly creeping into her bones, as some stars were already visible. The ocean seemed tinted with shades of black, darker than the sky. A streetlight on the platform was lit. The shadow of the train-station man was barely visible from the distance. Calypso sighed as she tried to cope with the loss of the diary. It was now somewhere on the seabed, sunk into the sand, pages waving in the ocean currents, waiting for a day that it could surface out of the water and be read again.