It’s interesting, the boundaries that are placed within one’s mind to prevent thought from traveling too far. As days bleed into weeks, and weeks multiply into months, which slowly construct years, our minds become set to fit patterns of observation. As a result, mundane considerations are most of what occupy the little space inside the tight perimeters.

However, there are cites and circumstance that cause the boundaries to relinquish their power, and provide a chance ripe for deep contemplation. One such place, is a train speeding through the night.

There is something special about a train. Something wonderfully old fashioned about seeing one quickly approaching, like a dark streak flying through the air. Something startling about it slamming to a stop before you, its hiss frightening you, even though you knew it would do just that. Something exciting about climbing aboard and finding your seat, proudly sticking out your ticket to be clipped by a dressed-up conductor, curiously regarding your fellow passengers and watching them arrive and depart soundlessly, feeling the train slide smoothly over the tracks beneath, and looking out at the world blurring beautifully beyond the glass.

The view from a train is a secret one, like a new perspective; one that is not limited to roads and highways, or skies cloaked in clouds. The tracks take  passengers above towns and beneath cities, through countryside and pockets of woodland. They never deny their strait, continues existence, and yet the tracks are circular, guiding their trains through a globular passage. There is no start and end. There is no forward and backward. There are no points on a line, just an expansive plane. The only starts and finishes belong to the passengers.

Yes, trains are wonderful stimuli, but everything is different when night shrouds the moment aboard them. Thoughts can leave the mind and reside in the darkness, where they become visible.

One can pretend to be a runaway, escaping a life that held her prisoner. Or a lonely lover who saved enough time and money to visit the person that filled his dreams from all the way across the country. Or a business owner whose whole life could be changed after a meeting at his destination. Or a parent returning home to her children, after far too long away. Or an adventurer setting out on a new escapade. Or a lost soul in search of clarity.

And after exercising their freedom around the car of the train, thoughts may return to their owner, and one can deliberate.

What was, what is, what could be. Why and When and Who and How.

And one wishes the moment will extend forever, because there is magic in it. For, when one steps onto the platform boundaries are built up again.