Players: John, Drew, Steve, Tim

Bodhisattvas:

(1) The Mourner: Who whispers to protect everyone's ears, smells like freshly-dug earth, and carries a list of the dead.

(2) The Kitemaker: Who wears a cloak of illuminated moonlight over the body of the void of space and speaks the language of the void of the stars.

(3) The Cavalier: Who rides a six-headed goat of fire, bears a sword that shatters illusions, and is accompanied by the wailing of the fallen.

(4) The Assassin: Who moves like a brutal poet, wears a patchwork of the garments of the fallen imprinted with their names, and bears the face of a blank, unlettered sheet of parchment.


Stations:

(1) Estadio: An outdoor train station in the middle of a wheat field. Very few occupants, including a pair of janitors sweeping colored dust off the floor to return the station to its dull monochrome. Ultimately, all the humans are also insects that hold their human selves within their carapaces (except for one that holds the seed of a paintbrush tree), the wheat takes flight and is revealed to be strings of primary-colored ants, and trains shrink as they depart. Broken free of their carapaces, these insect-humans continue to carry them around, and try to escape out across the wheat field into their old lives. Those that are allowed to go become horses and gallop away. The Assassin blocks the station off to new arrivals by bending the platform into walls with his bare hands. At last, the Kitemaker arrives and reveals the last remaining carapaced janitor to be The Traveler. The Kitemaker himself perishes slowly from contact with the toxic shimmering dust.

(2) Santa Rosa: Multiple trains have collided, leaving a buckled mess that is not going anywhere. The theoretical passengers fill the platform with an unsettlingly sexual dance, while a loan ticket master calmly carries on with his duties. Ultimately, dancers explode when held, the "trains" reveal themselves to be one giant transparent tube filled with the doppelgangers of those on the platform, and the front train becomes a giant seething wall pushing the tube back down the tracks. The dancers are merged with their doppelganger counterparts by being forced to acknowledge the passage of time, the dark wall becomes a shimmering train engine, and the station itself disappears except for the ticket master. The Cavalier, utterly unthrilled about this replacement being a lowly ticket taker, confronts him and runs him through. The ticket master tears out the Cavalier's heart, eats it, pulls the sword from his own body and departs to become The Butcher. The Cavalier spends what time he has left ravaging the remains of the dying world in his rage.

(3) Einstein: A station filled with sweets-mad rollicking chaos. People's eyes are full of chocolate and a giant bank of vending machines spit out free candy along one wall. Ultimately, the inhabitants are revealed to be pigs...who, when fed into a vending machine elevator, are easily processed into sausage. The platform transforms into a beer hall full of "manly" men who drink beer and eat sausages with great gusto. Their children are mysteriously missing (Fill in your own disturbed speculations here). Playing the Blue Danube on the accordian of space in The Kitemaker's chest reveals the beer hall to instead be an upscale dance hall. The Duchess arrives, wearing her cloak of metallic hydrogen to dance with the Kitemaker for millenia compressed into an instant. The Mourner arrives and sings one perfect note with the Duchess. The stellar lights explode into a supernova. The Mourner is transformed by the expansion of the stars into a small planet drifting through space and the Duchess is revealed to be The Songbird.

(4) Del Sol: There are no trains here. Instead there is a great parade! A "ticket master" hands out balloons to the station's occupants, who float upward onto the great balloon float passing through the chamber. Ultimately, the strings of the balloons are revealed to be snakes and the float to be a great hydra. As the Cavalier battles the great floating hydra, he finally climbs inside to see controls within. The Mourner charms the snakes that surround the platform like a great sea and they clear a path to reveal a little girl with a single yellow balloon. Then the snakes and hydra themselves become water, leaving the platform alone in a (quite literal) great sea. The Assassin arrives and gives the little girl his massive cloak of the names of the dead. Finally, he passes her one final piece of cloth, himself, and is no more. The little girl is revealed to be The Dancer, who will lead the Great Parade of souls to the new world.

And, of course, all of it made perfect sense.

Thank you to Steve, John and Drew for going into the chaotic imagination eruption of Metrofinal with me. If any of you have something you want to add (or refute), please do!