Listless

He was awakened by the metered flashing of the tunnel lamps racing by. One by one, each set the cabin ablaze ghastly orange in an endless crescendo decrescendo anthem. He knew not his whereabouts, nor why sleep should pervade him at this hour, whatever hour it was anyway. The cabin was silent, save for the occasional murmur from comatose passengers and the lulling drum of the train against the tracks. Gazing out the window, he was greeted by his reflection which, though backwards and blurry, was the self he alone knew. He looked and was confronted by a haunted face that seemed even more weathered than usual. Yet it was the surrendered look in his eyes that betrayed his every attempt at denial. He was exhausted. He placed his palm against the window and felt the frigid cold shoot up his arm. Little by little, the season had taken its toll on him. His being was unwell in manners unseen and unbeknownst to anyone, himself without exception. He had his physical health to be thankful for, though even that gave proof of his abuse. His being heaved and groaned inwardly against the relentless winds of an enormously unforgiving winter. He breathed against the glass and drew a face with his thumb. The face sighed at him with a sort of defeated and apathetic expression such that had it had shoulders, it would have shrugged. He sighed back and wiped the glass clean with his sleeve. Like stars passing in the night, the sinusoidal light dance outside placed him in a zen-like trance from which he guzzled a moment of solace. He imagined himself, and presumably the train, suspended in an infinite loop within the space-time continuum while the world outside hurried by, in the opposite direction. The cosmos waits for no one - of that he was convinced. As sleep seduced his weary soul, the curtains descended over his eyes and sent him back to listless delirium. Slowly at first but accelerating, the stale orange glow grew fainter as a blue-white light seeped through his eyelids until it captured his consciousness. The train emerged from the tunnel, and his dilated pupils retreated from the blinding whiteness that assaulted him. As his eyes adjusted, he looked through the window and, for the first time in a long time, saw beyond his own reflection, and he gasped. Winter frost covered everything in unadulterated white. The hills twinkled in the dim morning light. In the distance, the sky blushed like a naked grapefruit, as if in anticipation of the new day. The mountains shuffled aside and bowed in reverence to reveal glory rising along the hazy horizon. The magnificent fiery egg yolk beamed in the sky, greeting the sleepy frozen foothills with brilliance. Unable to summon any other response, he simply marveled. He stared intently at the luminous gum drop, convinced that to have blinked would have been an injustice. It was all-of-a-sudden perplexing to him that a ritual so beautiful should come to pass everyday everywhere and people not awe, that he himself not acknowledge its immeasurable significance. Even the regularity of life it represents, the expectation that today will be just like yesterday and tomorrow the same, is a phenomenon that flees philosophical explanation and all faculties of human reasoning. We have no reason to believe that the sun will rise tomorrow as it has every morning to dispel the night, yet it does. Having moved on to greater sights and deeper truths, he had neglected the majesty of an uncensored sunrise. It was a sight for sore eyes, he thought to himself, just as he was abruptly plunged back into darkness and the train into deep space. He was immediately reminded of his troubles and at once tempted to grieve. The dramatic disparity between his hopelessness and the ethereal experience only seemed to add to his sorrow. But when he closed his eyes, he could still see a bright yellow halo parading on the back of his eyelids. It was a trivial discovery, juvenile even, but it brought him comfort. It reminded him that by no human endeavor, the night shall pass and the sun shall rise, that though relief lies far beyond our short-sighted vision, there will always be a light at the end of the tunnel, that home is nearer today than it was yesterday.