TRAIN TO INSOMNIA

A pale insomniac with rutted eyes, I track sleep out of time’s intemperate blandishments. —Thomas James

Midnight falls from the elate mouths of bells. Tonight sleep is a foreign country and they are stuck at its border with suitcases packed with pajamas and fine linens imported from Pakistan. They clench their paperwork and wait. A woman from Peoria meticulously knits a blanket and a man plays a clarinet. There are thousands waiting for the train to arrive in hopes it will bring them to sleep. They gather nightly and swap stories of dreams: Beth, from Kalamazoo, tells of how she drowned.

The water rushed over her head and she sank, bed and all, to the bottom of Lake Michigan. Do you understand? I wasn’t afraid that I had drowned. I was relieved. I looked up from a murky vault of brackish water to the sun rising over a bosk of birches while carps and pikes swam in circles. I breathed in the water, the color of a bruise. That was seven days ago.

Tonight the stars are cheap rhinestones pinned to the sky like brooches and the moonlight is all wrong: It’s too bright and full of its own brightness. The light is like that used on a film set. It’s meant to contrast black against white. The lawn and lot of the depot are covered with tatters of hyacinth and lilac, pansy and orchid petals gracefully blowing about as snow blows about on a winter’s day.

The train slumps on the tracks, a cloud of diesel-smoke bellows, a black trench coat unfolding its sash. Noises travel slow, heavy as stones and thick as silt. Words fall from the conductor’s lips, smudges of titanium pool on his lapel. Boarding the train, they hand their paperwork to the conductor, he stamps the back. Night purpurates. They make their way through the cars, the lady from Peoria has finished knitting her blanket and unfolds it over her tired body. The man who played the clarinet is silent. He rests his head in his hands that can’t stop trembling.

I find a seat across from the girl from Kalamazoo. She pulls a compact from her fuchsia pocketbook, the circles etched out underneath her eyes disappear into powder. The red flank of day floods her mirror. Outside snow pieces itself to itself. I listen to its descent, impeccably elegant. I know I am missed and loved by someone.