19.

Being lost makes it worth being found ... but who is more lost ... Delia or Samuel?

Such a strange thing to be doing, heading to a lost and found center to find a person, of course it is not just any person that Samuel is looking for. That person in question is indeed his wife. If she is somewhere near-by then there is a possibility that she may not want to be found at all but why would this be so?

The love they share, their love, their connection is so rare and strong that surely neither would want to give up on it but here Samuel is, alone in a strange place, a strange world, wanting nothing more than to be with the love of his life once more. This strange world however has already tested that love, it has asked a question or two. No matter the question, Sam is sure of the answer. This place may just question that too.

When Delia went missing ... did she do so willingly? ... it is possible this may be true but there could be more to it than that too. As Samuel is coming to learn ... this place is not any ordinary place, not by a long shot. Perhaps there is a drug like call that drew Delia back here as it is more than obvious that Samuel and Delia were here before. Still ...

It may be a strange world that he has come to, in many a strange way too it is familiar, of course in which it has become apparent that there has been a before in this place. The familiarity is more than a sense or more than a feeling that he has been here before, there are bits and pieces of the real world, bits, and pieces of his world here in this one. And then too there is a nothing raging through this world ... a nothing Samuel has yet to become aware of.

This lost and found center, what does Samuel do once he is there? He can hardly just approach someone if indeed there is someone to approach and tell them that his wife is missing and ask as to if she could possibly be within such a place as in that exact place he has come to. He can't expect for someone to say 'yes sir, just hold on a sec and I'll go get her ...' Nah, surely, he cannot do that at all, or expect it, though this still is a strange world and strange things do happen, strange things have happened, and strange things will more than likely continue to happen.

Once at this center, Samuel is immediately confused. The place is completely unlike what he would expect any kind of a lost and found center to look like ... if anything it bares more a resemblance to a train station than to anything else. In fact, a train station is just what it does appear to be. A lost and found train station, now ain't that something?

He enters the main building, himself looking as lost as anyone could look in such a place. A man who looks to be some kind of conductor approaches and asks ... 'person or item?'

'Excuse me?' asks Samuel.

'What you are looking for, is it a person or item?'

'Oh, person, actually it is my wife, you see ...'

'I don't need details.'

This conductor person works a small machine he has strapped around his neck and issues a ticket to Samuel.

'Platform four' speaks this man while pointing to where platform four is. 'Your train leaves in five minutes.'

'Five minutes ...?'

With that Samuel takes the ticket and the conductor is gone before any further inquiries could be made. Samuel is definitely more than a little confused. Apparently, there is no charge not that Samuel currently has the means to pay for a train ticket to anywhere. A place like this would hardly accept a credit card, let alone one completely maxed out even with the fact he is with employment, employment in the real world that is.

Anyhow, there also are questions he would have liked to have asked such a conductor but as it is, he did not get the chance to do so. What else can he do but move to where this platform four is and board that train?

The traditional old style call of 'all aboard' sounds out loud and the train whistle blows for the first-time giving Samuel a sense, a feeling that it is as if he has stepped into the past to a very strong period in time where the time itself and the place he happens to be in has lasting implications for the future.

Maybe he is in a place where the settings have no more meaning than that of a game. Does Sam need to be here? Will it bring him closer to wherever it is that Delia is? He has not come to play any kind of game. Maybe he needs to take part in one to get what it is he wants.

What else can he do other than get onto that train and see where it takes him? So, onto the train he gets and in a small compartmental passenger carriage he sits, alone at first but soon he is joined by three other individuals who all surprisingly enough arrive individually and silently. Each of these individuals look unusually unique as Samuel takes a moment to assess each of them.

The first of these individuals sits directly opposite to Sam with the fact that Sam has taken a seat large enough to sit two, a seat that faces another similar seat with a table spacing the difference in between. This first man is middle-aged though shows traits akin to that of a child. The eyes of this individual are large, bulging, and open wide. He seems to have an abundance of energy and despite having only just sat down he appears to be having a difficult time trying to sit still.

The man is extremely fidgety. With the index finger of his right hand, he begins to repetitively tap the table that all four have come to sit at and he can't help but to continue to look all around as if he is taking in a hundred gigabytes of information a second.

An insect, some kind of fly grabs the attention of this man, and he follows it with those bulging eyes for a second or two before a lizard like tongue exits his mouth momentarily, extending with great speed to capture that fly for his consumption. Samuel most definitely did not expect to see anything quite like that. It takes him aback to say the least.

This tongue moment does not frighten Samuel; it does shock and surprise him but nothing more than that for indeed it is not something one would see every day. The other two passengers in the carriage did not pay any attention to what it was that Samuel witnessed. Maybe for them it is something one might expect to see on a daily basis.

Samuel soon turns his attention to the person sitting next to the lizard tongue man. The person who is next to the lizard man is a rather large woman who herself seems to be from a time long since passed and she, as already mentioned, seems completely undisturbed by that man right next to her.

The lady is possibly a little older than the man to her right. Her actions seem very focused and keep her still as she seems to focus on nothing in particular. She wears what appears to be a tailor made dark red double-breasted suit, she also wears a dark red bonnet with a black feather tucked into a side of a ribbon that circles the hat. On her hands are gloves as white as snow. They are pristine and definitely as white as white can be.

To look at this lady one could never tell that she indeed was in the company of three others, one of whom of course being Samuel. Shouldn't she be chauffeured royally rather than board a train? This is the look she portrays and surely in the regular world such a portrayal would be realized though again there appears to be very little regularity to be seen of late.

Sitting right next to Samuel is an older gentleman, a man dressed in a dark business suit equipped with its own bowler hat. He wears thin framed glasses with circular lenses. His beard is full, trim, pepper dashed and neat. He too sits unperturbed and is consumed with reading presumably a business section to the newspaper he has brought with him. However, in a place such as this, nothing can be presumed or assumed. The man next to Sam could be reading absolutely anything at all.

Thoughts once again strike Samuel letting him know that he indeed is nowhere near Kansas, though what he will soon see outside the window he sits beside tells him that he may be closer to somewhere he has been to before in reality.

The train whistle gives a loud double tout and off it goes. Samuel would like to have a gander out the window and have a look at whatever this world has to offer though he is very weary of those he sits with. He finds all three of them very distracting, not frightening but definitely distracting.

There are sights along that train journey, despite the company he sits with Samuel does take some of it in. These sights, Sam has seen some of them before and they bring back something to him, they bring back lost memories. Remember his trip through the hotel where he and Delia married, the trip with the open hotel rooms and the fantastical sights beyond those open doors? ... The trip which concluded seeing himself and his wife from what surely was their wedding night.

At one point, as Sam tries to take in more of this strange world by staring out the window of a moving train, he views what appears to be a coming together of two creature of which only exist in books of fiction. A rather large red dragon, breathing fire and all, more than appears to be harassing a ... unicorn. Even though he sees it and sees it clearly, he can't quite believe what his eyes are seeing. This must be another one of those sights common to this world for no one on the train, as far as Sam can see, is paying any attention to what is going on outside of the train.

This dragon and unicorn moment ain't no brief coming together either for it is a good thirty seconds or so before the momentum of the train takes the creatures out of Sam's line of sight. Yeah, as odd as this is, he has kind of seen something similar to this before.

Well, all that is going on, all which is happening is more than a little overwhelming and there still is plenty more to come. The train soon reaches a station, a station which cannot be, or at least cannot be somewhere within this world ... but before he gets there ...