The Nighttime Train

There is a subtle beauty to the nighttime train. Dark silhouettes of trees pass between your window and the last vestiges of an evening sky. A calm stillness surrounds you; the rushing air and constant rocking transporting you through solitude in the midst of a crowd. If people speak, it is in whispers. Sleep pervades the seats.

The lights are dim; many curtains are drawn. A few children protest the time of rest, crying to their parents or wriggling in their chairs. But you only notice if you watch for it. If you listen. If something draws you out of the reverie that is meant to lull you through the long hours.

A writer’s blessing and curse is to both notice too many things and nothing at all. There are days when the millings of people escape my notice as I gaze out the window, and yet other days exist where I am drawn like a cat to the slightest movement. When my attention is drawn, I see and hear things throughout the entire car. When it is lost, I barely notice the tilt of the coach or the rattle of the tracks.

Even as the rattles escape me, the shakes do not. It is hard to type on a wobbling screen, after all. I can only imagine those in days past taking care to not slosh their ink or smudge their words. I would not have survived such an ordeal, my panic for perfection bursting my heart before the second page.

There is some activity in the aisle. Adjustments to luggage, the occasional laugh. The life of passengers diluted in the noise of the train. A world among worlds; each seat its own, yet utterly connected to the others. Some more separate than others. Families join their worlds, friends blend, and even strangers mingle.