Thoughts on the Train

It’s late, the kind of late that makes your apartment feel like it’s holding its breath. Your phone is face-up on the table like a little altar—black glass, silent, waiting to be lit. Time is already there when you look up. Not as a clock. Not as a deadline. More like a presence in the corner of the room—the way a storm sits on the horizon without moving. He’s calm. He always is. Camel brown overcoat draped over the chair, blue eyes timeless matching his auburn hair. The watch with number and no hands still on his wrist. “You cleared your night,” Time says, softly, like he’s reading the air. “You made it simple.” “I thought it was real,” you say. Your voice comes out smaller than you meant it to. “He sounded excited. He sounded… real.” Time tilts his head, listening the way someone listens to a song they’ve heard before but still can’t stop feeling. “And then?” “Then his replies started getting smaller.” You swallow. “And I kept checking my phone.” Time doesn’t laugh. He doesn’t correc...

Time is already in my kitchen when I walk in. He’s leaning against the counter like he owns the late afternoon, sleeves rolled up, the familiar camel-colored coat draped over the back of a chair. The light from the window turns the sink into a small, bright plane of silver. “You rearranged something,” he says, nodding toward the room. “I moved the coffee maker,” I reply. “It kept splashing on the backsplash.” Time smiles. “You always start with the practical reason.” “What other reason is there?” Before he can answer, a soft sound—like a page turning in another room—drifts through the space. She appears without drama, as if she’s been here the whole time. Memory. Not an apparition. Not a ghost. More like a person who knows where everything used to sit and still walks that route out of habit. She wears something unremarkable—soft sweater, quiet colors—but the air around her feels textured, layered. Like she carries rooms inside her. “You moved it because you’re tired of what that corner...