Welcome to the New Dawn

WELCOME TO THE NEW DAWN

“Do you wish you could change your personality? Is there something about YOU that you want to change? Now you can! Famed psychiatrist Dr. John Black has teamed up with Dr. Tom Smith to develop a new non-surgical procedure that can eliminate those characteristics that trouble you. Meet Joanne Krasiky.”

“I was rude to every one I met on the street.  I didn’t care.  But when it got me fired, I decided I had to do something.  Thanks to the new ‘Trait Alteration Procedure’ I am no longer mean. People stop me on the street to tell me how nice I am! Thanks Dr. Smith and Dr. Black!  I am a new woman!”

“In a secret location to maintain patient confidentiality, the New Dawn Facility has been created to help patients feel comfortable in this spa-like setting.  As an introductory offer, the first five hundred people to call the number on your screen will get fifty percent off. That’s right, fifty percent off the treatment price! So call now!”

“I was always on the go, rushing around.  I was a nervous wreck most of the time. I couldn’t even sleep at night.  On one of those sleepless nights I saw the infomercial about this procedure. I immediately called and was on the next train out to the facility.  Today, I am a new person!”
*    *    *

It was nearly five o’clock. I was late as usual.  I can never be anywhere on time I’m plagued with tardiness disease. On top of that, my watch stopped working.  When I realized that it had been two-thirty for at least an hour and a half, I was frantic trying to get all of my stuff together.  Then my landlord came and kicked me out.  Two months behind on rent, I had no job and no money.  What little money I had I spent on the cheapest ticket for this trip.

The station was almost deserted.  I hurried as fast as I could but the bag I carried was my home and held all of my clothes, belongings, and books that I couldn’t bear to part with, so instead I carried the burden of their weight. 

“May I have your attention, please.  This is the last boarding call. Please have your ticket ready. Thank you and welcome to the New Dawn Express.”

My stomach gave a lurch. I began to realize that I was actually going through with this that it wasn’t something that I was just thinking about.  It felt absurd. For a brief second I thought I could turn around and not go, but then I remembered I had nowhere to go.  So I stepped on the last car of the train, resigning to the fact that it was all I had at the moment.  I sat down in a seat next to a window, thinking of how I was going to an undisclosed location that could be anywhere.

I was going nowhere, because I had nowhere else to go.

There was a slight surge forward as the train started down the track. I settled back in my seat and stared out the window.  The rain that late December day was tinged with ice and thick clouds hung low in the sky. The train picked up speed, rushing pass a landscape of old dilapidated buildings, ramshackle houses, and graffitied basketball courts, all fading into the dreary gray darkness as dusk crept over. 

I looked around the train car to see, for the first time, who I was traveling with and was surprised to find that there were only four other people.

On the other side up close to the front was a girl in a newsboy hat.  I couldn’t see her face, but judging by the pale skin of her thin neck she seemed delicate and fragile.

At the very back of the train on that same side was a guy with black hair that fell just below his shoulders. Indistinct rock music emanated from the earphones he had on. He nodded, maybe to the music, maybe out of nerves.

A few rows up from the back on my side was a thin black guy.  He wore small glasses and a button up shirt under a blazer. He was sitting up straight, staring blankly ahead of him.  I watched him for a minute, I don’t think he blinked once.

My eyes ended on the girl sitting in the seat behind me. She had hair dyed candy apple red.  Her eyes were smoky and her petite lips pink against her pale skin. She smiled.

“Blow pop?” she asked.

“Excuse me?”

She held up three round lollipops.  “Grape, sour apple, or cherry.”

Even though I didn’t like candy I took the grape and thanked her.  She unwrapped the green one and stuck it in her mouth.  Sighing through her nose, she sank back into her seat. Her lips smacked together when she pulled out the lollipop. “I wonder how long it will take to get there,” she said.

“Hopefully, not too long,” I said.

“God knows I can’t wait too long. I’m Poe, by the way.” She held out her hand and I shook it.

“David.”

She leaned forward so fast it startled me. “Are you scared David? Of the procedure?”

“I don’t think so.” Actually I was a little apprehensive but I wasn’t about to tell a stranger that and I was becoming oddly aware of the fact that everything we were saying could be heard by everyone on the train.

“What are you going in for?” she asked.

I stared at her for a second, surprised by her forwardness. “Nothing major.”

“Do you want to know what I am going in for? I’m having my desperation removed…I’m tired of it.  Tired of wanting…needing.”  She sighed again and leaned back in her seat, closed her eyes. “Desperate, desperate for something.  When will I ever be content?”

I didn’t know exactly what to say, so I didn’t say anything.

Suddenly she sat up and looked around the train.  “Does anyone know how long this trip is supposed to take?”

The girl with the hat shrugged.  The black guy shook his head and the guy with the long hair just stared at us.

“I have a feeling,” Poe said, sinking back in her seat again, “that this is going to be a long night.”

*      *    *
Meet Mrs. Helen Corning…“I was so sad all of the time.  Crying, crying, crying. My marriage was falling apart.  Then I went to New Dawn and had my sadness removed.  Now everyday is a bright sunshiny day in the Corning household!  I am even starting my own business.  ‘Happy Happy Sing A-long Grams!’”
*    *    *
The train sped down the track.  Outside was pitch black, there was no way of knowing where we were.  We had been on the train for what could have been an hour or two.

I looked into Poe’s piercing blue eyes. I could smell her sandalwood perfume as she rested her chin against the back of my seat.  It was hard to resist.  “My dad died when I was 16,” I said. “My mom remarried a year later to a used car salesman with two sons.  She has a new family now.  They moved to Alabama.”

“Are you going to see them at Christmas?”

“I can’t afford it after this.  Besides, they’re going to Disney World.”

“You’re kind of cute.”

I couldn’t help but blush. “Thanks.”

Poe stared at me a minute; I felt a little self-conscious. Then as if I was a passing thought, she looked around the train.  “Are you okay?” she asked the black guy. 

He still stared ahead. He seemed surprised when he realized we were looking at him.  “Excuse me?”

“Are you okay?”

He looked around and acted as though he just realized where he was.  “I’m fine, thank you.” He exhaled through his nose as if he had been holding his breath the whole time and made an attempt to relax back in his seat.  It didn’t work; he still looked tense as hell.

Poe plopped her bag next to her onto the seat. “God I’m starving!” she said.  She began to pull out a stream of belongings; a myriad of junk food, a pink bra, a black lacy shirt, fashion magazines, and a well-worn sketch pad with colorful drawings sticking out at odd angles.

“Would you like a Hostess Cupcake?” she asked me, holding out a plastic covered chocolate cake.

“Thanks.” I said and took it from her.

“Would anyone else like a cupcake?”

The girl with the hat shook her head and watched Poe ask the others on the train. 

The black guy said “no, thank you” in a voice barely above a whisper.  The guy with the long hair looked over at Poe then turned away.

“Cheese ‘n crackers?”

The girl with the hat shook her head again, the black guy looked at the pack of crackers in her hand then politely refused.  The guy with the long hair fiddled with his CD player.

I felt conspicuous.  The crinkling of the plastic wrap of my cupcake was abnormally loud.  I felt like a pig as I bit down and tasted sweet cream and chocolate.  Nevertheless, it was the best damn cupcake I ever ate.

“Actually I think I would like some crackers,” a voice said. 

Poe and I looked back at the black guy. “If you’re still offering.”

Poe got up to hand him a pack while she introduced herself.

“Louis. Thanks.”  He nibbled on a cracker, taking deep breaths after each bite.

While we ate the girl with the hat would intermittently glance back at us. 

“Are you sure you don’t want anything?” Poe asked her. 

“No, I better not. I’m a dancer. I have to be careful what I eat.”

“Oh, what kind of dance?”

“Ballet.”

“I’m sure one pack of crackers won’t kill your ability to plie,” Poe said and waved a pack of crackers in the air.

The girl smiled.  “Okay.” She got up and stepped down the aisle to take the pack.  “Thanks.” Instead of going back to the front she sat in the seat across the aisle from me.

Her name was Charlotte and in a few bites she ate all of the crackers in the pack. 

Poe looked back at the guy with the long hair.

“You look familiar,” Poe said.  “What’s your name?”

“Jessie.”

“Jessie, Jessie, Jessie…” Poe squinted her eyes.  “Do you ever hang out at Wasteland?”

“No.”

“Oblivion?”

“No.”

“Transience?”

“I don’t think we’ve ever met.”

“Oh…Are you sure? I swear-”

“I don’t fucking know you!”

“Sorry.” Poe turned around and folded her arms across her chest. 

The sudden tension in the train was accentuated with each tremble it made as it rushed down the tracks.  It made me nervous and whenever I’m nervous I start talking.  “Does anyone know what time it is?”

“Seven-thirty,” Charlotte said

“So,” I said to whoever was listening, “some crazy weather we’ve been having lately.”

“Yeah,” Charlotte said. 

“I know where I know you,” Poe said and turned back to Jessie.  “Juvenile hall. You were arrested for robbing a store. You were living on the streets.  I remember, it was when I ran away from home.  I got caught.  See,” she said slapping her hand against the vinyl seat,  “I knew I knew you from somewhere.”

Jessie didn’t respond.

“So,” Poe said, “what happened?”

“None of your fucking business,” Jessie said.

“Are you always this pleasant?”

“Are you always this nosy?”

“I’m just trying to be nice.  Obviously I’ve hit a sensitive subject.”

“Fuck you, bitch!”

“You know what?” I said in a voice louder than normal. “I’m lonely.”  Maybe it was the sudden jolt of sugar to my system or the tension, but the words were coming out regardless if I wanted them to or not.  “That’s what I’m going in for.  To get rid of my loneliness.”  Everyone stared at me like I was the saddest thing they’d ever seen.

The train shook as it traveled down the tracks.  At first it’s not so noticeable but after a while it starts to make you a little sick.  I leaned my head against the window where I could feel the vibration against my skull.  It was uncomfortable as hell, but I was trying to appear casual.
“What the hell. I’ve got nothing better to do.”

*      *      *
Mr. Bill Weatherby says: “I was judgmental of almost everything.  There was always something that bothered me that I didn’t like.  After five days at New Dawn I have a new appreciation for the world around me.  There’s just so much beauty, it just makes me cry sometimes…It’s…I’m sorry….just so…beautiful…”
*    *    *

Charlotte picked at a large tear in the seat between her legs. Foam stuck out and small little fuzz balls floated to the floor. There was some shrieking from the train tracks that I just noticed.  I wondered if it had always been making that sound.

“God, I can’t stand this anymore!”  Poe stood up, walked up and down the aisle.  “We have to get there soon!”  She stopped to peer out a window into complete blackness.  “We can’t be on this stupid train all night.” She paced a little more, stopping occasionally to look out of different windows.

Jessie tore off his earphones and threw them down on the seat.

“Are you okay?” Charlotte asked him.

“I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

Jessie looked up at her and smiled slightly. “CD player skips.”

Poe plopped down in her seat and sighed.  She tapped her feet against the floor and started to make popping noises with her tongue. Louis cleared his throat. Jessie leaned forward and rested his forehead against the seat in front of him.

“What time is it now?” I asked Charlotte.

“Nine twenty-two.” Charlotte tensed her lips in a polite smile. I smiled back and looked at her until it got awkward. I glanced at Poe. She had started to braid a section of her hair.

“Do you think it will work?”  Charlotte asked me.

“I don’t know,” I said.  “I guess all we can do is hope.”

“Hope…That’s what I am getting rid of.”

“Hope?…That’s insane.”

“It only causes me pain and grief.  If I didn’t have hope I wouldn’t get hurt when something doesn’t happen.  I wouldn’t be…devastated”

“But hope is a good thing.”

“I worked so hard and gave up so much…I never even had a boyfriend. I want to dance for the American Ballet Company or the New York City Ballet…Each audition I have I hope that it will be the one. I hope so much, then I get rejected.”

“Don’t give up yet,” I said.

“I won’t.  I wouldn’t know what to do with myself.” 

“But isn’t it hope that drives you?”

“At this point it doesn’t matter.”

“Of course, it matters. You need hope,” I said sliding closer to her.

“No, she doesn’t,” said a voice from the back.  I glanced back at Louis.  “Hope is highly overrated.”

“Are you getting rid of your hope too?” Charlotte asked him.

“No,” he said.

“Hope gets us through the bad times,” I said. “Hope is the light at the end of the tunnel.  Without hope, it’s all darkness.”

“I don’t want to hope anymore,” she said and her bottom lip trembled a little.

“But maybe-”

“Leave her the fuck alone!” Jessie said. “If she wants to get rid of her hope that’s her business.”

“I just think-”

“It doesn’t matter what you think.”

“Why do you care?” I asked.

“I hate fucking assholes who think they have to be in other people’s business.”

I turned back to Charlotte. “What about other things to hope for?”

“Leave her the fuck alone!”

I slammed my fists down on the seat and jumped to my feet.  “This girl is about to give up her hope.  Do you not get it?”

“I get it,” Jessie stood up.  “But it’s none of my fucking business, is it?”

“Just forget about it okay?” Charlotte said.

“You’re the kind I hate. A pissed off at the world, poor pitiful me, everyone sucks! Spare me!”

“Fuck you!” He stepped closer to me.

“Listen, why don’t you two sit down,” Louis said, standing up.

“Is that all you can say?” I said. “There’s not much to you, is there?”

Jessie opened his mouth to say something but then shut it.

“That’s what I thought.” I was tired and the shaking of the train only aggravated my nerves more. “You’re just a good for nothing bum!” Jessie lunged forward but Louis grabbed his arm and Poe jumped up to block him.

“You don’t know anything about me!” 

“Let it go,” Poe said in my ear.

“He’s right, David,” Louis pulled Jessie back to his seat. “If that’s what she wants to get rid of, that’s her choice.”

I tore my eyes away from Jessie and sat back down on the edge of my seat.

“We all have something we want to change,” Louis said.  “No one has any right to judge.”

I looked back at Jessie, expecting him to be staring at me but he wasn’t.  He was looking out the window, breathing heavily, his right fist clenched as it rested on the back of the seat in front of him.

Louis extended an arm towards Jessie, holding out the package containing the last three crackers he had left. “I don’t want them.  You take them.” Jessie looked from the crackers to Louis then forced a smile as he accepted them. “We all have our reasons, reasons no one else would fully understand unless they had walked in our shoes.”

*    *    *
“I was so self-conscious, ” says twenty-three year old Alisha Louve.  “I was always worried what people thought. After going through the ‘Trait Alteration Procedure’ my self-consciousness is gone.  Now I do what I want, when I want and if people don’t like it, screw ‘em.”
*    *    *

“Truth,” I said.

“If you could have anything in the world what would it be?” Charlotte asked.

I thought about it a minute.  It was sometime after eleven and I was tired. “Love,” I admitted.  Normally I wouldn’t admit to such in front of strangers—or anyone for that matter — but, like I said, I wasn’t thinking clearly and yet a part of me wondered why I would be so embarrassed to admit it.  “I want to fall in love.”

“You will be some day,” Poe said. 

“What makes you so sure?” I asked.

“Because you want it bad enough.  You already have the love inside you…You just have to find the right person.”

“I’d like to think that.”

“Would you still want it as badly if you had your loneliness removed?” Poe asked. She stuck a Dorito in her mouth and crunched down on it.

She had a point but I didn’t want to think about it. “Poe?” I said.  She seemed so innocent with her hair parted in two braids that fell across her shoulders.  “Truth or Dare?”

“Truth,” she said.

“What are your hopes and dreams?”

Poe stared into space. “I want to be a famous artist. Travel all around the world and have great love affairs. Then die a tragic death. The kind that people talk about years after.”  She smiled to herself.  I could almost see the reflection of her dreams in her eyes. “I want to never be forgotten.” She snapped out of her reverie and looked around the train. 

“Jessie,” she said, “truth or dare?”

“This is stupid.”

“Are you scared?”

“No.”

“Then truth or dare?”

“Truth,” Jessie said half rolling his eyes.

“What are you going in for?”

Jessie opened his mouth to retort, but stopped. “Dare.”

“You can’t change,” Poe said.

“Well, I am!”

“Fine.” Poe watched him for a long second, she then looked at the rest of us, her eyes fell on Charlotte.  “I dare you to kiss Charlotte.”

Jessie showed no response but I heard an intake of breath from Charlotte.

Poe seemed pleased with herself. “Not just a peck on the lips. A real kiss, for…a full thirty seconds.”          

Jessie stood up and went to sit in the seat behind Charlotte. He leaned over and stopped when his lips were inches from hers. In one quick motion he grabbed the rim of her hat and pulled it off.  A mass of whitish blonde hair fell to her shoulders.  Her face, which had been hidden under the shadows of the hat, was now illuminated. 

Before Charlotte could show any sign of protest, Jessie pressed his lips up against hers.  The kiss was a slow one. I could see the exchanged of tongues as Jessie’s lips moved over Charlotte’s. For a second I felt both aroused and jealous.
More than thirty seconds passed when Jessie pulled away from her. They opened their eyes to look at one another appearing as though they knew a secret that no one else on the train was privy to know.

“Charlotte?” Jessie asked as he walked back to his seat.  “Truth or Dare?”

“Truth.”

Jessie ran his fingers through his hair, he smiled at Charlotte. “Are you a virgin?”

“Hey!” Poe shouted in protest.  “Now who is being a nosy-”

“Yes,” Charlotte said.  She and Jessie were staring at each other, oblivious to the other three people on the train.

“Jessie,” she said in turn, “truth or dare?”

“Dare.”

“I dare you to tell us what you are getting rid of”

“Touché,” Poe muttered.

The smile on Jessie’s face faded. He didn’t look away from Charlotte but only said softly as if she would be the only one to hear. “Control.” 

“Seems to me it should be your temper,” Poe said under her breath.

“Why control?” Charlotte asked.

“You can’t control being beaten by your dad or having to run away because you know it is the only way to keep your mind,” Jessie said tapping his temple. “I couldn’t control having to live on the streets, having to steal to eat. I can’t control the fact that people take one look at me and assume that I’m trouble.”

“I didn’t think that,” Charlotte said.

“How can you get rid of something that you don’t already have?” Louis asked.

“The need to control. When it comes down to it you can’t control a fucking thing.  No matter how hard you try. And that is what pisses me off…I couldn’t control who I turned out to be.”

“We’re all fucked up,” Poe said.  A slight smile formed on her face as she produced a small thin white cigarette from her pocket and brought it to her lips. “And soon we be even more fucked up.”
         
Fifteen minutes later the car was filled with smoke. I had pulled out a small radio I had in my bag and music was blaring from its speakers. We all were stoned out of our minds, dancing up and down the aisle in the foggy haze of the train and our heads. I never felt so happy and content in my life. I never felt so connected with others than I did with those people.  The train cut through the darkness but the world outside temporarily did not exist or matter.

*    *    *
“I was very shy,” says Martin Jones, an accountant from Dayton. “I had a hard time talking to people.  But thanks to my new friends at New Dawn I am the life of the party! Now I have no problem going up to people— even complete strangers— and talking to them! At the office I was invisible, but not anymore!  I make sure I talk to everyone there and they know it when I come in the door!”
*    *    *
It was sometime after one in the morning. I was digging in the Dorito’s bag for any crumbs that were left.  “Are there anymore cupcakes?” I asked Poe. She was breaking apart her braids. 

“Jessie ate the last one.”

“Damn.”

Charlotte was in the back seat making out with Jessie. Jessie would stop kissing her from time to time to say something or ask her a question.  “You have the most beautiful face…and the most beautiful hair.” But before she could respond he was kissing her again.

Louis was back in his usual spot.  His eyes were half shut as he held the last of the joint between his index finger and thumb.  He smiled at me as he swayed from side to side.

I looked back at Poe. “You shouldn’t get rid of your desperation.”

“What?” Her hair was loose and a little wild. She was the most beautiful thing I ever saw.

“Your desperation makes you who you are.  It gives you your light.”

“My light?”

“It makes you passionate. It drives you.  Don’t get rid of it.”

“He’s right,” Louis said. “You’d be boring.”

“I can see it in your eyes, like they are on the verge on tears.  They make me wonder what you’re thinking…It’s your soul.”

I could see that very look on her face.  “It just hurts so much.”

“What does it feel like when something good happens?”

She smiled. “Euphoric.”

“You know what’s funny?” Louis asked. “How you work so hard for your future and that’s all you do and it turns out you don’t have a future anyway.” He laughed sardonically.  “Now, that’s ironic.  Ironic,” he said like he was in a spelling bee. He sucked on what was left of the joint. “Opposite of what is expressed or anticipated,” he said in one exhale of bluish smoke.

“Maybe you shouldn’t smoke anymore, Lou,” I said.

“I was valedictorian! Got into Yale…And it was all for nothing!”

“It’s not all for nothing, Louis,” Poe said

“I was going to be successful one day. It was all part of the master plan…Then I find out that I’ve got this disease…” The twisted smile on Louis’s face dropped.  “A disease they say I’m going to die from. The future was so bright for me but now it’s a void…Absolute nothingness. A dark cold grave.” 

Louis stared at the seat in front of him. “I don’t want to die.” No one said anything, I searched my mind for some words of comfort but found none. “Fear,” Louis said in a voice no louder than a whisper but we all heard it. “I don’t want to be afraid anymore.”

And then he started to cry.  We all stood and rushed over to him. “It’s okay, Louis.” Poe said.

Charlotte put her hand on his shoulder and Louis grabbed it. “David’s right, Charlotte.  You can’t get rid of your hope.”

“But you yourself said that hope was overrated,” she said.

“Sometimes it’s all you’ve got to hold on to.”

“Then I give my hope to you.”

*    *    *
“I daydreamed all of the time,” says Marilynn Jackson of Newark, New Jersey.  “My head was always in the clouds, but New Dawn took my daydreams away and now I see things as they really are. I no longer waste my time on silly nonsense.” 
*    *    *

“…your attention, please…”

I opened my eyes, blinking.  I didn’t sleep well, it was difficult in that small seat. 

There was someone talking half in my dreams half in reality.

“May I have your attention please.  We will be arriving shortly.  We would like to welcome you to New Dawn.”

I sat up and saw everyone else sitting up as well.  Charlotte was rubbing her eyes and Poe was yawning.  Jessie’s face was lost in a mass of hair. Louis was looking out the window like he had been sitting there a while.

Outside signs of light lifted the darkness from the world around us.  I could see houses with Christmas decorations and cars with people going to work like it was any other day.

The movement of the train that had become so familiar that I no longer noticed it, shifted and slowed down.  I looked from face to face of my traveling companions, all, judging from their faces, like me, feeling apprehensive.

In silence we all gathered our belongings and struggled to straighten away the confusion from the night before. I combed my hair and looked back at Poe, who turned to look at me. I started to say something but the train came to a stop.

I felt slightly dizzy when my feet hit solid ground.  I heard the others descend from the steps of the train and come to a stop around me.

People emerged from the cars ahead of ours, all walking towards the front of the train where there were buses.

An attendant approached us.  “Right this way, the buses will take you to the facility.” He held out his arm to guide us.  I looked at Poe, who looked at me. Behind us, Jessie had his arm around Charlotte, who looked from Louis to me. 

The attendant stepped closer to us. “The buses will take you to the facility!  If you move along we should arrive shortly!”

Whatever was going on in each of our lives, whatever issues we had, none of us knew more than our own experience, but I was sure at that moment we all felt the same. In a split decisive second, we all turned and began to walk in the opposite direction of the buses.

“Excuse me!” the attendant called, “you’re going the wrong way!  The buses are that way!”

Where we were going we didn’t know, but a silent communication assured us that it would be okay.  I felt Poe’s hand slip into mine, feeling her delicate fingers sent a warm sensation up my arm.

At that moment I realized that in this crazy scary world there were others like me. And I no longer felt so lonely.