A world between worlds

Too late. A wall of metal was already between her and the track. She had left it too late. Shaking, hot tears sprang all over her face, down her neck, stinging her eyes, already sore from so much crying at The Boathouse.

Backing towards the shrub she decided to try again. She walked along the track, a world between worlds. Coppelia, this is where everything ends. You leave one world and enter the next. You are now leaving one world. Is this where you want to be?

Please God, give me courage. Please God. Give me courage.

Another train would come. Perhaps if she laid down she would be less visible to the driver.
She did not want to risk making him brake at the last minute, as this could cause a crash and people could be hurt - or worse. Later, she would think how strange it was that she cared about hurting strangers on a train, yet had not recognised the hurt her suicide would have inflicted on her daughters.

But we must remember, those who fall into the blackness where Coppelia had fallen, no longer experience the world in the way they do when living in light. Light reveals the truths we take for granted. Their absolute darkness distorts all but the pain inside them. That pain is their only reality, and they are driven nearly mad in its grip.

She lay face down. The damp, cold stones pressed against her knees, her hands, her cheek.
The ground began to hum, a deep, throbbing groan. A train.

She pressed her whole body down harder. Please God. Please give me courage.

At last, she would not have to live through the future without the man she loved. The man for whom her every cell was screaming, bleeding, longing... At last. It was over!

The future. She would never know that hateful future. Yet,what if the future held what she could not see right now? He was still alive. Whatever had been said, she knew he loved her. Would always love her. This truth - he was alive, he loved her - with this truth surely the future may not surround her with the desolation she so feared?

She lay hardly breathing, her heart racing, still in a world between, facing both backwards and forwards.

The face she adored came smiling to her from somewhere in her memory. She smiled back.
Please God. Give me courage.

Please God give me courage to keep living.