I wonder about what I am doing, and I’m thinking about the people left behind in time; people who got off at their station. Of course some get back on at some point, but there are plenty who don’t as the train keeps going and it’s a one-way trip.

You look out the window and wonder when the scenery changed, and why you didn’t notice. Were you distracted at the time? Did it all become some amorphous blur? You don’t know. But it’s different and it’s nice, but something has been left behind as this train has moved on, and you don’t know what to do about that, or if there is anything to do at all. You’re not entirely sure what it is, but that’s okay. It’s not all that bad.

What you see are open spaces, plains marked with all sorts of homes, and sometimes cities, but it all seems vague. It all seems like an impression. Cleared spaces, and sometimes thick vegetation stretches out. Occasionally the sea, and mostly the sky. There’s a lot of that, and carried through are a series of clouds and rains, and sound, and clear skies where nothing drifts along.

Sometimes the train is crowded, but it can really feel empty. Alone in a crowd and all that, and loneliness creeps in. Sometimes the train is crowded and it’s fun and joyous, and there’s some sort of beauty in all the small nothingness of it, but you don’t realise until later on because that importance doesn’t matter in the moment.

Sometimes the train is empty, and it feels much like a long walk at night after a party. Drained, and loneliness holds with comfort and ease. The quiet was perhaps needed and there are times when that quiet is appreciated, but here it feels more like isolation than having space, and the train keeps on going. Maybe there are a few others but they keep to themselves and they don’t notice you anyway. They’re all on their way to their stop, and you’re riding until it’s yours.

Sometimes there are a few others and they’re the ones you miss the most when they exit, because it’s nice to have them around, even when things get hard. They ride with you and you ride with them. It’s quiet moments shared in snapshots among the scenery you pass, and there’s not anything that you’d trade for those moments, because there’s nothing that could compensate for them.

Those people who were part of your journey for a while; the memory lingers, but they aren’t there anymore, and maybe you’ll wonder why their journeys ended when they did. The train keeps on going, but they’re no longer on it. They’ve been left behind in time, even though they continue forward in thought and memory.

Eventually those people will have to get off, and eventually so will you, and the train will keep going through the hills, the valleys, the coast and along escarpments, through cities, villages, through empty spaces crowded with experiences long forgotten and no longer existing, and you won’t see it again. That’s your last stop and it’s time for you to be left behind in time, but you’re where you’re meant to be. Maybe you’ll reflect on your time during the ride, but that’s it.