Tickets please ... have your tickets ready for inspection ... tickets please ... thank you ...

Imagine for a moment that you are on a train, more than imagine it ... feel it. Feel the fabric of the seat you sit upon, see the station outside the window next to you. Hear all the sounds associated with a stationary train preparing for departure, see the people already aboard and those currently boarding. This is where a journey is to begin so currently, there are no passengers vacating the train.

And what a journey this trip will be.

Are you on that train because it has been suggested to you? Or are you actually there, as for such is how life goes? Is there any room for you to be a little unsure about something or other to which you can't quite place. You are at the front of the carriage you are in, so you have some leg room, and when you sit, the bulk of the carriage is behind you.

The seat is a double or rather two individually shaped seats side by side, and you are on the inside, on the window seat. Is someone sitting with you, or are you alone? Will one of the currently boarding passengers attempt to sit next to you?

You cannot remember much from prior to being on the train; in fact, you remember nothing at all. You can speak and have a general knowledge but as far as who you are, how you got here, and other facts of such, you have no idea. Where are you going? Where have you been? Oddly these things don't seem important, not yet at least.

It feels natural to be where you are, there may even be purpose to it but before long a problem will present itself, a problem so odd you question its actuality or possibly even your own. Questioning your own presence may not come so quick though most likely will come at some stage ...

***

What should be a brief journey from start to finish, has begun, and it is to be anything but short. The mode of transport, a train ... a tram system that caters to one rather large town in particular ... it enters a tunnel, a tunnel so dark that none of those onboard the train would be able to see anything outside the vessel they so happen to be travelling upon.

The tunnel, on this occasion, goes on and on, on and on, on and on, when under ordinary circumstances it shouldn't go on so long at all, to the point where some of the passengers, if not all (for eventually it will be all), begin to believe that the train was not going anywhere in particular for this tunnel is not one of any real length, at least it shouldn't be, especially if you were travelling upon the train that is.

Of course, other theories will soon be thrown around as to why an exit from the tunnel is not being reached, for the initial moments ... there is confusion, complete and utter confusion. It'll get worse before it gets better is something we might often hear but this right here ... well ... will it get better?

Travelling at speed, which the train regularly does, this tunnel is most always cleared in about ninety seconds, give, or take a second or two either side of the ninety. On foot however, an athletic middle-distance runner up to Olympic standards would possibly clear it, travelling from one end to the other, in about six or seven minutes. At a walking pace, depending on demeanour, and other possibilities that affect pace, the journey would be significantly longer but still doable in a reasonable amount of time.

Yeah, it is clear that the train is physically moving. The vibrations, the sound of the train itself, the inability to move through the interior of the train in a straight line all of the way along. So, if the train is moving then how could it be going nowhere? It must be going somewhere, but why is it not clearing this tunnel?

Indeed, there is no tunnel along this route that should not take more than those ninety seconds or so for any train traveling here, to get through. As a matter of fact, the tunnel in question, which does run underground, but only just, is the only tunnel along this particular route.

There is that matter of lighting too. The regular lighting within this tunnel is not the most powerful lighting to ever exist but it does actually exist ... or at least it should ... exist. On this journey, there is only darkness on the exterior of the train to the point that a though may be conceived that there is no tunnel at all.

Yeah, said lighting in this particular tunnel should never be turned off, especially during hours or regular travel, and if it were the case that some sort of power outage was in operation then a backup generator should kick in ensuring that there is lighting twenty-four seven. As it is, the unending lighting has come to an end and now an unending track is in unending darkness. Besides, the train is electrical, if there is an outage of power, and something preventing any and all back-ups, then the train itself should not function. Function the train does, despite or possibly in conjunction with, whatever it is currently occurring.

Why any of this is so, is something which can only be fathomed by the passengers on this train at this current time. What the heck is going on? Surely someone somewhere knows. This tunnel is dark, as dark can be, and it most certainly appears to be unending. If the train's own lighting were to fail, then where would that leave the onboard passengers?

What really is happening? Does anyone not on the train know what is going on? More importantly ... Can anyone do anything about it? ...

1.

A television promotional advert plays on an ordinary television in an ordinary household and is going completely unnoticed by any of the house occupants ....

If you were to find yourself out there and not here when here is what you do know while there is more what you don't ... could you believe that it is there that you belong to in actuality and everything here is nothing more than an illusion ...?

Then why not come do something about it ... come visit one of our stores today ... don't wish to be somewhere else, go be there ...

The advert continues to play out unnoticed, or perhaps it is being noticed on some level or other ...

Lost in thought, it is only when you reach the tunnel, and have spent more than a minute or two within it, that you realize something is up, something is not right. And this realization does not fully come right away. It is when others around you begin to react to the situation that you start asking yourself questions. Why are you on this train? Where is it you are trying to get to? Are you alone? You appear to be. Who the hell are you? And why the heck are you here? The ultimate question – what the hell is going on?