Nearnoon Skies

I am a lovely phantom in the other’s head,
as much detached as carefully constructed
and when I’m by the stars convicted dead,
my own world will, by them, be reenacted

I woke up after an incorrectly-timed nap on a train westward; checking my watch, I breathed out in relief as the hands were still in the positions of a late afternoon. Rediscovering the world around me in the span of a slow second, I found again a gentleman sitting in front of me. During the first few hours of the trip he was reserved, but made an occasional remark on the current events or on the book he was reading; I didn’t mind. Now he only stared out of the window while regularly sighing in acceptance.

The train, indeed, dragged slow, adding to the sense of tired expectation. Used to speed or stillness, I found few benefits in the indecisive in-between, and the viscous fields and towns we passed made me feel almost physically nauseous. Turning away from the window out of boredom, I saw a well-dressed servant set a saucer onto the desk I shared with my train neighbour, after which he turned to me.

“Would you like some tea?”, they said in unison; the servant apologised. I asked for my favourite, oil-soaked, and sooner than I could distract myself again, he returned with the tea, as if compensating for the lack of social grace with stern professionalism. Upon receiving a deserved coin, he just as swiftly left. Interested in the secret of his anxious momentum, I poked out of the door of the compartment, but the angled velvet symmetry of the corridor was already empty.

We were now close enough to the kingdom to see their landmarks. Minutes passed, and the far-away mountains, dressed in cotton and shadows, slowly revealed themselves from the mist; I readjusted the blanket and lost my eyes within the distant palepink. While I was dreaming of another nap, the train entered a forest. The chaotic stream of thousands of leaves, each almost hitting the cold of the glass I leaned against, set the time moving forward; through the slant windows, open like gills, a small white flower flew in and landed inside my tea cup. The smell of bergamot and cherry proceeded to fill the compartment until the sudden but long-awaited stop.