Travels  − 11 January, 2007

The station is filled with tired, unhappy people. They seem overburdened as they sit quietly here, their thoughts weighing more heavily on them than their luggage. Here is a place that is meant to hold you just long enough for you to remember that you're far, far away from home, placing you like a bookmark between stops to sit and wait with your family. Or perhaps merely their memories.

I see exhausted mothers holding their exhausted children, and I am not sure who's more miserable in this picture: the mother struggling to appease the finicky and restless child, or the child, who's too tired, young and obstinate to be quieted.

I see a haggard and dusty old man sitting dazed on an unforgiving metal bench, clutching a half-eaten sandwich disinterestedly in his gnarled hands. The miles he's traveled are almost visible on him, in the folds of his clothes and in his weathered skin. He watches the people walking past with watery, bloodshot eyes and for a moment becomes nothing more than part of the scenery.

I see a room nearly bursting with people, yet everyone is completely alone. The cell phones have quieted their talk, the owner's long succumbed to the heavy silence of the place. No one speaks. Their only lot in life now is to wait; for a bus, for some sleep, for the hands of the clock to make it all the way around.

I sit on my bench with my effects on my lap, a faithful pet following me from station to station. One more hour to go.