The rain falling lightly on the windows of my berth sounds like tiny fires crackling.

Night on the edge of a forest north Georgia. Most everything I see is a twisted reflection of light coming from my phone or computer or maybe the nightlight. I can make out tall trees sometimes, a factory shoots by all orange. The train feels faster at night and no matter which direction I sit what we’ve left behind and what we’re facing feels the same. I slept in hot patches with shades drawn all day so the night feels fresher than normal. I can hear shuffling bodies outside my berth. The slow clacks of a speeding train. The hiss of fake air. Low rumbling and an iPod. Everything artificial reaching out to touch the forest hurtling by outside our windows. Night moves.

Writing in an affirmation of some kind of exhaustion. Lunch in the dining car with 4 women from Alabama home from a cruise. A brethren couple and another mother and son, also brethren. The women’s caps were the softest white and floated like crowns. They all made contact with every person who walked by with simple smiles and a hello. I felt a warmth from them coming from somewhere else. Driving an ethics of kindness as a way to live. When their food came they prayed together in the most solemn and efficient few seconds and the whole car felt silent and the four ladies from Alabama held up and everyone said their own kind of blessing for a split second on the Crescent Line.

Came to 3 hours in a dripping sponge. A tick found three weeks after a hike in the woods. Full. Aching. Time’s lost a lot of its edge so far this go. Almost like I’m sinking far down into the guts of the machine or floating weightless in the center of my berth. I’m cashed. Through and through. Wring me out. Burn me off. Either way I’m hurtling home.