The Garden Transport Station

FICTION

“Keep it moving… keep it moving,” droned the little creature—a gelatinous thing that looked like a pair of eyeballs plopped atop a mound of congealed hand sanitizer. Eyes that were thankfully disinterested enough not to recognize me. It waved flashlights with bright, pointed cone lids at the steadily flowing river of beings that poured into the final corridor of the transport station.

Above the entrance to the corridor was a metal arch with cut-out curved letters that said simply:

THE GARDEN TRANSPORT STATION

“How many times have you been through?” a sing-song voice asked from beside me. I looked over to find a pair of wide, friendly eyes suspended in translucent purple-tinged goo only inches from my own.

“Through?” I said.

“The gateways—life,” she said. I got the feeling that she was, in fact, a she—though here, there weren’t any lady parts or man parts to speak of. Here was transient. “I’ve been through seven times,” she said without blinking. Seven tim…