Pilgrim

... and I am alone.

I turn North under a darkened, hazy sky. It feels late but the sun is just beginning to set on the edge of the cloud cover. Behind me lay a bustling city of travelers. With a last glance to the city center from whence I'd come, I tighten my grip on my bags and follow the curving road upward.

The train station is almost empty at this hour, holding little but an automatic ticket stamper and the abstract hum of the ceiling lights. Platform D. I stride outward past tired commuters, heading off into the falling night. My mind, unable to do more than detect and observe, instinctually reaches into my pocket and pulls out my music player. I sit on a scratched, half-broken bench for some time, scanning the tiny black box for something, anything, that would spark. Nothing. The night remains cold. I return the music player to my pocket and simply gaze at the concrete, made orange from the platform lights.

I lay back in the green train car, unable to see much of the countryside through which we travel. Normally I would be calmed, soothed by the rhythmic clacking of the wheels on the track. My body and mind would gradually shift into that gentle numbness of sleep; I would awake at our destination. There is no shifting tonight ... no movement, no natural tendency toward slumber. The clacking resonates throughout my chest as it would through a hollow drum, rebounding and echoing with each renewed shock from the wheels below.

Another station. My throat is dry ... I stumble into a half-darkened snackshop as the owner begins to lower the gate for the night. We do not speak the same language but I form my hands as though to beg or pray, then flash him one finger. I will be quick, in and out, I just need water. Please, sir. I say it out loud, knowing he will not comprehend, but I say it anyway. He understands, leaving the gate half-down to ward off other travelers but returning to the register. I hurriedly grab a bottle of water, toss him a coin. I reform my hands and bow my head, thanking him profusely. I hear the lights click off and the gate clang onto the concrete behind me. He must have seen my eyes, I think.

Another train, another countryside. There is only darkness still. The car is more full this time, a car of maybe a hundred sleeping souls. Some snore. A young woman behind me exhales softly; if I lean my head against the window I can feel her breath against the back of my right ear. A priest some rows up is the only illumination in the black cabin, poised under a yellow light and reading from a tiny tome. The heads of the sleeping souls bob in unison with the bobbing of the car, side-to-side against our motion. I imagine we dart through the night, cutting the woods and hills and grass with a cleave of swift steel and fire. Despite this outward serenity I do not sleep. I am out-of-body, I am not here. I am seat 68 on car 21.

The sun breaks over the horizon a nighttime later. As it rises we pull into our destination, another stone and gray city. My mind has now been oscillating between a nullified existence and a quiet but agonized screaming for some hours. I am exhausted by this but find my legs have already risen to take the aisle. They carry me out of the car; carry me to my bags; call to my arms, who generously lift my bags; carry me out of the station to a bus map; call to my eyes, who scan the map and identify a bus number; bring me to the correct stop with the correct number.

Out of the bus window I see a city passing by, alert and alive with noise amidst a the rising sun. Honking horns and traffic lights, people laughing with friends, the language I do not know. Again on instinct I check all my pockets, as I would before leaving for class or to fly across an ocean. I panic slightly, as I have all during my journey, when I don't feel my phone or keys in their respective left and right spots and instead find a passport and plane ticket in their place. The bus runs alongside the sea as I run these checks. When my habitual obsession is appeased, I take the time to view the sun reflecting over the water. Is my wallet in my bag?

The airport is as it was eleven (twelve?) days ago. I pass through security. I pass through the terminal. I pass through to my gate. I arrive just as the doors are opening. I hand over my ticket and passport silently. In broken English I hear, "You are going home?" "Yes." "Safe flight." "Yes." I walk down the jetway, find my seat. Place my bags. Sit down. The interminable screaming is now quite intense, almost deafening. I yearn for it to abate to the out-of-body numbness. Despite my exhaustion I cannot sit still. In my wallet (which was in my bag and not my pocket) I find $19 dollars. What can I use this for? I do not want to read my book or write or watch the movie or hear the woman with the crying baby or hear the business man type on his laptop or hear the incessant question of the stewardess or hear the clinking of the coke cans, so arrhythmic and unlike the deep guttural clinking of the train car wheels at 31,000 feet. I hit the button and show my money to the stewardess and form my hands as though to beg or pray. She brings back what I ask for and takes some of the money; I drink it and the screaming fades a little. Two more button hits and I live a little again. Still my body will not sleep so once again I sit still, now at 550 miles per hour and 31,000 feet, flying over an ocean. I am going home and want to be nowhere else. At this thought I am seat 26E on flight 47. It feels good.

Another bus outside the airport. No one is on it but me. The driver takes us through the streets of a bigger city, out of it, through the more amber countryside, to within a few miles of home. He will not take me further. No one can? I sit on the curb and wait for my friend to come find me and take me the last few miles home.

I sit on my bed. My bags are downstairs. I see the walls of my room. The blue of my sheets. The familiar shape of my horn. The smell of my laundry. The calls of the people outside. The heat of the summer.

I sit there, wishing I were back where the sun had set on the edge of the clouds.