dream fragment

I didn't write this own quickly, so I've forgotten much.

I dreamed I was on a train. The train stopped at multiple afterlives, and was in fact basically the path to the afterlife. I remained alive despite being on this train, for the dead. There were conductors on every tram, the ferrymen, reapers, so on and so forth. The Kind Man shared a booth with me, and gave me a blanket in which to wrap myself with.

There were subtle differences between me and the other dead people around me. For example, at one point there was a brilliant and burning light that seemed to hurt the other dead people on the train, as if they were being burned by it. I felt nothing, and the Kind Man, ducking under the window and looking to me standing in the light, asked me why. I found I had no answer to him, and when the light faded the train was noticeably less crowded...

I met someone else on the train, who told me of their world where people worshipped a kind of creature similar to a hagfish. Their homeworld was filled with swamp and murk. The hagfish type creatures were the oly creatures that were directly beneficial to the environment around it, in other words there could never be an over-population of them. The more there were, the healthier the place was. It was believed that these creatures were the spirits of the kindest people, and that these fish temporarily regain their human forms in order to commit random acts of kindness, before disappearing again, just out of complete compassion. These fish supposedly saved drowning children and led relatives to lost family, explorers to civilizations, travelers to food. I asked that person where they were going on the train. They responded that they hoped their stop would be murky, like the swamps of their home- to be one of their sacred fish.

The Kind Man said nothing during this conversation, looking out the window with a forlorn look on his face. While I talked with that person, the scenery outside was.. hard to describe. Like an ever-shifting painting, colors that have no description. I was under the impression I was watching the essence of life and spirit and afterlife, if that makes sense. When the person passed our booth by, I looked to the Kind Man and asked him where he was going and if he was dead. He gave me a soft smile and asked me "isn't this what you made this place to be? I'm just fitting in" He opened the window to allow a warm breeze through. It smelled like... well, I can't describe it. The Kind Man looked out the window, and said to me almost absentmindedly, something I don't remember but I remember finding it fairly significant in the dream. He looked to me and gave me a sad smile, and then I woke up.