Mama Aisethu drives me to the station. The oldest daughter is accompanying us. I am wearing my pants again, the malefha forcibly tucked into my backpack. The wind is blowing in sand through the pane-less car windows and the others wrap their malefhas close around their faces. I just squint.
“Are you going to buy a ticket or go in the milles?” mama Aisethu asks me. I don’t know the word but I am guessing that “milles” maybe means the iron carriages, and I say so. Her short “hum” does not reveal her opinion to me.

The station is far away and people are waiting already. It is around three in the afternoon. Mama Aisethu and her daughter wait with me for an hour, then hug me and bless me and leave to run errands.
“We will come back,” she says but I don’t think they will and I hope they won’t; I suspect the wait might be long.

People stare at me but they don’t approach me apart from the security guard greeting me and checking my documents. Most people are spread out on the rows of plastic chairs, some families are sitting on big mats on the floor, some are making tea. A brother and a sister are racing around, playing, otherwise the voices are lowered and few.

I wait in every way that I know; sitting, strolling, stretching, reading, slumping over my bag and sleeping. At one point the man next to me picks up a conversation and I do my best. It is already dark by then. He is from Senegal, he speaks to me in French and we end up watching dance videos on Youtube on his phone for about an hour. Finally, then, the train is announced. I check the time; around nine. We have waited for six hours.

…

Everybody starts instantly shuffling, rising from their seats, gathering their stuff and crowding around the exit. I hoist my bag up, too, feeling stress. The doors in the back are opened and people start spilling out into the darkness and wind. My shoes feel tight and uncomfortable on my feet, the bag pressing them down into the hard floor and later the uneven sand; unfamiliar weight after two weeks. There is no platform, only sand and every body becomes a backlit silhouette in the few sharp lights next to the tracks. A confused crowd. I feel tense, startled from the sleepy waiting into all this moving, no idea what to expect. I leave my bag on the ground and walk away from the crowd to pee, counting on the darkness to cover my crouching shape. I know the ride to be fifteen, maybe seventeen hours. I have two small bottles of water, some juice and a piece of white bread.

We hear it before we even see the lights which is telling, as the rails are straight and the view unobstructed. A metallic vowel conveyed by the train tracks; a sound between a whine and a whistle echoing between them and vibrating out. Through the wind I hear it: the metal is singing. Gradually it increases, but still no lights in the flat darkness. Only a faint glow from the distant city. It is only when the whine becomes a rumble and the whistle becomes a screech that the two lights approach from the distance, slowly, the sound steadily increasing. It is more than air vibrating now. In the pit of my stomach I feel that whatever is coming, it’s big.

The carriages blow past us. The noise is deafening as the heavy, empty carriages rumble and reverberate each other. Blue sparks occasionally light up their undersides and wheelsets. There is no slowing down and in the poor light I peer up at them, try to make out how to get up and into one; they are high. I hope there are steps on the inside.

I have decided already that if it proves too hard, I won’t do it; I am not that kind of a tourist. I will not risk my health for the adventure, no matter what. Being stubborn comes with knowing one’s limits and I am aware that the weeks of being sick have made me weaker. I don’t know if I am strong enough to climb up into a carriage with my backpack, in the dark, possibly without a ladder. If it comes to it I will sleep in my tent in the dunes and then hitch to Nouakchott tomorrow. Or I will call mama Aisethu and ask her to bring me back. I remind myself of the option to quit as the carriages rush past me, trying to stay calm in the restless energy of the crowd.

Eventually the train starts slowing down. The rumble subsides, softens, rises to a whistle. Two yellow passenger wagons have reached the crowd and after those comes nothing. When the train finally stops completely the sudden silence is almost as loud as the noise.

The people move swiftly, instantly, most crowding towards the passenger wagons and some groups breaking out and going for the iron carriages. I see people climb up and start loading up parcels, relaying hands. I have lost my Senegalese friend in the crowd but I know he will be going in the passengers’ wagons. I don’t know how much time we have. I make quick steps, head toward the carriages no one has claimed yet, hoping to have one for myself and to avoid having to share with one or several unknown men.

The carriages rise high above me. Thin iron rods make up ladders along the sides, sometimes with steps missing or broken. I reach a ladder and grip it, place my foot on the lower step, then lift myself and the backpack, slowly, just to see if I can do it, the metal straining into my hand. I reach for the next grip with my hand, then the next, then the edge. The inside if the carriage is just black. I see nothing; not how deep it is, if there is a ladder or of it there is anything or anyone inside. My feet balancing on the thin step, I grip the edge with one arm, bring out my phone from my pocket, pray that the train won’t move, that I have time as I turn on the torch and shine into the black box. Empty. Deep. A small ladder leads down on the inside, one of the steps bent, the last one missing.

I don’t know if I can do it.

The backpack pulls me backwards and obstructs my movement; both my shoulders and hips are strapped and resticted. I don’t know how to lift my legs over the edge, where to hold on while I shift my body weight. I’m afraid that the weight of the bag will make me fall backwards if I take another step up and should lose balance for even a second, and I can’t lift my legs over the edge unless I go further up. There is no way for me to unstrap the bag, either, to let it fall into the carriage ahead of me. I am stuck. And what if the whole thing starts moving as I try, is the question dimming my mind with fear.

I stand on the ladder and hesitate for long minutes. The wind is still strong. Further away I see the crowd around the passenger wagons as black shapes moving so I figure, hope, there is still time. Remember that you can leave, I think. If it’s too hard, leave. Breathe.

With a deep breath I move one leg up the ladder and bend myself forward to clutch the edge with my whole body. The fall down would be so long. I lift the other leg, slowly, search for a foothold on the inside, sweat beading my forehead but still breathing deep, and find the thin metal refuge with my toes. Then the other leg, held from moving freely from the hip by the backpack. My stomach pressed to the edge, I look at the mechanisms holding the carriages together, slowly negotiating the weight of the bag, slowly slip in my other leg and point of balance.

Suddenly I am looking out at the station building from inside of the carriage. Adrenaline is drumming in my ears. I light the torch again and use it to find the ground, plant my feet, unstrap and drop my backpack.

I am inside.

The metal box muffles the sounds from the outside, muffles the wind and obstructs the light. I am in the thick cotton-darkness I just looked into from above. The sounds of my own breathing and movement seem to strangely echo against the iron walls, returning as if from a ghost figure standing close to me.

I stand, feeling my heartbeat calm just as I see a movement on the other side of the carriage. A bag and an arm appear over the edge. The arm is fumbling. Still not wanting to share the carriage, not wanting to use my voice and expose myself as a lone female and foreigner I feel unwilling, yet compelled to help. I use my voice, let him know I am here, ask him if he wants the bag inside. He hears me and I receive the bag. A big, square plastic-wrapped package appears over the edge then, and the two hands holding it let it to me to lower down. Another one follows. He climbs over the edge a moment later, using the other side than I had. In the dark we exchange muffled hello:s, I can make out his height and the hauli wrapped around his head and face, but not much more. He arranges the packages, then nimbly jumps up to the edge of the carriage, lifts himself up on his arms and disappears. When I light the ladder on that side I see that the two lower steps are missing completely. I try jumping up in a similar manner on my side but I am too heavy for myself. I contend with just climbing up using the ladder and clinging out over the edge by grasping it in my armpits. The wind hits my head and torso. The movement beside the train has subsided as I’m assuming that the crowd has made its way inside the passenger wagons. Further away from the few sharp station lights are lights from the road in a row. Way off to my right I can see the lights of Nouadhibou. In every other direction everything is wrapped in darkness. I marvel again at how high up I am. I feel giddy and terrified, can not believe that I am here and have no idea what I am getting into. I have seen photos on the internet of people doing this, and now it’s me, here. A part of me expects some figure of authority to show up and stop me at any moment.

I climb down and before the man returns I dive into my backpack and put on all the layers to keep warm during the night, unroll my tent and take out my sleeping bag, then seal everything else inside the rain cover to protect it from the dust. When he returns we join in waiting. From some pocket or bag he produces a muffin and two cartons of milk, gives me the muffin and a carton with a quiet “bismillah” and then stands off gazing at his phone. I relax. I break off half of the muffin and offer him back the other half, then offer him my water, juice and bread. His distracted silence and generosity is enough for me to feel safe around him.

…

I don’t know how much time passes in the still carriage. I hear a rumble approaching before I am startled by a loud click and shift; the stranger barely looks up from his phone but I hear him smile at my crying out when the carriage starts. The train starts moving, ever so slowly and I realize the rumble and the click must have been the relay of force, the sound of the carriages moving, one by one reverberating in each of them.

Everything shakes and we glide, slowly. I climb up again, squeeze the carriage in my armpit and feel it move around me. I watch the lights disappear into our past. We accelerate.

…

The goggles protect my eyes from the sand and I am grateful to find an old, blue face mask crumpled up in the pocket of my jacket. It is needed. I have covered my head and face in my scarf and the hood of my jacket is pulled tight around it, still I feel sand and dust entering every pore; a dry feeling against the roof of my mouth and between my teeth.

Around me I can barely make out the surroundings, only vague shapes of sand as it gathers in dunes or blows past us in currents. The empty carriages echo and rattle, my little fleshen body clinging to the edge of the carriage, holding on with armpit, holding on with back, toes balancing on the bent iron rod steps and the thick darkness giving the sensation that we are underwater, wind forming strong streams, sand stroking my face, the few distant lights from stray cars breaking the illusion now and then but that stops pretty fast as we are out in the desert, no roads nearby and we drift,
clonk,
swim rhythmically over, through the sand dunes, straight through a vaguely shifting black. I expect big fishes moving past us on the currents, the lights from maybe those scary underwater predators, octopi slowly untangling their tentacles as they wander the bottom somewhere nearby, brushing up more sand with their bellies, one tentacle as wide across as the carriage holding me, sparse sticks of vegetation barely billowing, ambiguous shapes of mysterious sunken objects scattered out of sight, the water so thick here, dark, free from oxygen, critters and light.

The iron of the carriage so rough and raw.

I imagine even my teeth as soft against it, imagine it tasting like familiar blood but all I taste is dust, even behind my face mask. My body in such a contrast to the big, hard and sharp edges of the train moving me, bringing me further into the black, me, a little monkey body, stretchy skin and thin fingers and soft fat tissue pressing through the clothes against the cold straight shapes shaking me, so weak; driven out into the deep end by giving in to curiosity, giving in to this movement, yet the feeling of iron so familiar to me, the smell the same as of the iron moving in my own body, enhanced, extreme;
no one can say that we are not one.

Maybe I am inside a blood cell and this black ocean is an artery? I have, after all, always known that everything is both bigger and smaller than it seems.

My shoulders and back tire of clinging to the edge, my fingers go cold against the metal. Still I hold on, can’t get enough. After a timeless hour I return to the iron floor bottom. The wind has moved the raincover from my backpack and dust has already made its way into the crevices. I make out the shape of my carriage-mate curled inside a blanket, lying with his back to me next to his parcels. I roll out my sleeping bag, replace my shoes with thick wool socks, struggle in and relax on my back into the noise, the vibrations and screeches.

I melt into the bottom of the carriage, fuse with it through its vibrations and taste and smell of blood; for a moment, I think about my uterus. The vibrations continue reverberating inside my skull and I see how the wheels are moving underneath the bottom of the carriage. I see the empty space, the air, the short distance between my body and the two tracks singing, parallel. I see the connecting mechanisms on either side of the carriage, metal shapes I do not understand, tangles, which, with a little delay, connect this carriage to the one behind and the one in front, distributing the energy, pulling, pushing. I know that iron stretches, gives a little, but not until an atomic level. Yet, I can feel it.

I feel the funny sensation of my nerves going haywire by all the rattling. It overtakes my sense of self as I tune into the train-body, the universe inside my flesh receiving new, wobbly contours. I once saw a person with Parkinson’s draw shaky lines on paper and this is what my outlines feel like now.

But it’s OK. I fit inside.

When I open my eyes I see stars and they are steady and quiet through the square of the carriage. Closing my eyes I see the same stars in the universe inside me, mingling with the whistling, grinding, rocking and beating of the train, beating of the heart; all the movement and vibration blur the borders between which organs belong to whom, which parts keep who moving, who is the blood cell of whom; we are the same entity, shifting, changing, timeless. Right now it is only this; adventure. I am being brought, carried
straight into this body,
straight into this night,
straight into this desert.

…

Sleep comes and goes in patches, more like hallucinations born from thoughts wandering through all the noise and shaking. I linger on its threshold, know I’ve had it only when I wake with pain and my mask filled with drool and dust, the lucid dreams of sitting atop locomotives uncontrollably driving on highways with train carriages attaching and detaching themselves seamlessly claiming my attention, the stars surprise me by being the same through my goggles whenever I open my eyes in this reality.

In Inal, I think, we stop. I dig up my phone and look at the time, around 03. I turn on the GPS and find my self as a blue dot in the middle of the country, not far from Ben Amera, the famous monolith. I thought I would catch a glimpse but it is still dark and I am tired and confused and getting up from the sleeping bag feels too much of an effort, so I stay. It’s not cold except that the wind somehow finds its way into the sleeping bag and right through my layers. When I wrap myself into the tent tarp it is better, but I do not understand how my co-passenger can stand being wrapped in only a thin blanket. He has been in the same shape, huddled with his back to me, ever since we left.

The next time I tentatively awake, it is slightly lighter. I force my self to pick up my phone and the little blue dot is close to Choum now. I zoom in, trying to find out how fast we are moving, trying to force understanding into my un-anchored, still-hallucinating lobes. Everything is stiff as I heave, crawl out from the sleeping bag, ground unsteady as I press down my palms. But I feel that the train has slowed down. I force on my shoes and climb up on the ladder again, determined to beat sleep and see the dawn.

The wind gives me a push as my torso reaches up above the edge of the carriage. We are still underwater. Sand is flying, dimming the view. A small tree gives me a scare as it jumps up just beside the tracks, invisible until just a few moments before passing. Further away I make out the shapes of hills slowly rolling by, silent and still. We are held in a color that resembles coffee with milk but less saturated, leaning towards grey. The sun has not risen yet and so the colors are at a standstill, but we are moving in light’s direction. Behind us the stars fade back into the sky, more and more closed off by all the sand rising.

My muscles and joints hurt, everything feels stiff, I have barely slept and everything, everything is filled with fine sand dust. I have no idea where I will end up, what will happen or how I will even get off, but for the moment I linger here, hold on to the edge of the carriage with all the strength I have left for innumerable moments and let this mysterious, beautiful morning gently swallow me.

…

(This story told in pictures.)