Thoughts on the Train

The train slides through a tunnel the color of pencil shavings, the car mostly mine—a row of orange seats, a limp poster, the map buzzing softly like it remembers other routes. It’s 2 a.m., the hour when the city lowers its voice. My reflection rides opposite: older than I feel, steadier than I admit. The doors breathe and seal. “Next stop: Wasn’t-What-You-Planned,” the speaker says, calm as an usher. “That’s not on the map,” I say, not sure if I’m talking to the PA or the dark. “Most important stops aren’t printed,” the voice answers. It sounds like someone who doesn’t hurry even when everything else does. I rub a sleep line from my cheek. “I was aiming for Two-Stations-Back.” “Closed for renovations,” the voice says. “Forward access only.” “Convenient.” “Honest.” The car slows. We open onto a platform I don’t recognize—tiles nicked at the corners, a paper cup tracing slow circles like it’s teaching itself patience. No one gets on. No one leaves. Night air slips in with a mine...

 Under a velvet autumn sky, where stars like seeds are sown, the satyrs tune their willow pipes and call the tired home. The fields are brushed in copper light, the last leaves drift and sway, and every heart—beast, fae, and man— comes softly in from day. A cornucopia spills its dreams, fruit and bread and gold, grapes that taste of summer rain, nuts to fend off cold. Rabbits bow their gentle heads, foxes sit in peace, even the wary midnight wolves let all their growling cease. The satyrs dance on cloven feet, soft hooves in fallen leaves, their laughter curls like chimney smoke, like music through the eaves. A child curls close to lion’s mane, a sparrow sleeps on horn, and every soul that once was afraid feels just a little more warm. The elders lift their cups of cider, the young ones lift their eyes; somewhere in the quiet dark a distant owl replies. They thank the days that fed their joy, the nights that held their tears, the lessons carved in tend...

“You’re going to need your umbrella today,” Weather says as I pass her in the narrow hallway between my apartment and the building’s exit. I sigh as she speaks and feel the slight creak in my right knee. I grab the umbrella from the stand at the end of the hall. The umbrella pops open as I leave the warmth behind and step into the late-fall rain. A man with tousled light-brown hair and a long, weathered overcoat falls in step with me. His boots are scuffed, his pockets heavy with lint and ticket stubs; he smells faintly of ozone and old paper. “Mornin’. Time here.” “Of course you are,” I mutter. We continue walking in near unison. The trees are dotted with multicolored points of fading life—green, orange, red, yellow. Leaves lie scattered on the wet pavement, a testament to spring and summer past. Time passing. I settle into my long, warm overcoat, collar upturned in defiance of the cold to come. “So what are we going to waste today?” he asks, a half-smile tugging at the corner of his ...

 “Time is a thief,” I say to the window, fogged by my breath and the steam from my coffee. “It steals your thoughts, emotions, and youth.” “Hey,” the waiter says, topping me off. “We don’t get many thieves in here before noon.” “I’m serious,” I reply. “Time passes in the blink of an eye. You turn around and twenty years have passed.” A chair across from me scrapes. A man in a well-worn coat slides in without asking. His watch has no hands. “Name’s Time,” he says. “I pay in memory.” “Figures,” I mutter. “Hair a little thinner, laugh lines deeper, and crow’s feet around the eyes. Yet my mind still sees a bright, exuberant twenty-something kid who has the rest of his life in front of him.” Time smiles, gentle, almost apologetic. “I didn’t take your brightness. I just… traded it for texture.” “I enter into shock when I look in the mirror,” I say, “to see a face looking back at me that I don’t recognize. How do I make peace with that?” “Talk to the mirror,” Time says. “It talks back whe...

Morning starts with a radiator hiss and a thin bar of light slipping past the fire escape. A siren climbs the avenue, fades. Someone below argues softly over a parking spot; a delivery cart rattles across cracked sidewalk. He’s already up, steady as ever, scrolling headlines with that protective quiet that says: I’ve got us. The kettle ticks. The dog’s nails tap across the floor like a metronome. Outside, pigeons negotiate over a bagel half. Inside, our small systems hum—MetroCard on the dish, keys on the hook, mugs lined up like a promise we keep daily. We have a choreography made of errands and kindness: who moves the car, which corner cart actually slices the fruit, the shortcut under scaffolding when it rains. He hands me coffee; I take it with both hands because he likes that—like I’m receiving something delicate. “Trains are delayed,” he says. I kiss the spot behind his ear we call lucky. He laughs into the steam. The city exhales. Day begins. There’s another kind of day. It slip...