circuit

On a train back to the city, I met a man on the final leg of a trip around the country. He didn’t volunteer the information, it was the natural conclusion of my questions.

I’d noticed him on the platform. He was my father’s age, dressed in a purple windbreaker and shouldering a matching backpack. When he sat down across the aisle from me, I waited for a station to pass before asking what he’d been doing in the town at which we’d both boarded.

He said he’d been transferring through from a town to the north. I asked what he’d been doing in the town to the north. He said he’d been transferring through from a town to the northwest. And so on.

When I proposed that what he was describing was a trip around the whole country, he nodded impassively, as though I’d just informed him he had a year, four months, nineteen days, six hours, and nine minutes left to live, a fact he was well aware of.

He’d been traveling for seven months. As we sped past gray fields and shuttered factories it was strange to think the scene represented something significant to the man. For me, it was nothing more than the way home after visiting an old colleague.

“Any major revelations,” I asked, feeling a little impetuous for breaking a five-minute silence. And then he did something that surprised me. He smiled. “Nothing transformative,” he said, “just some things I hope to hold onto in the city.” I asked if he could be more specific. “Being open and curious,” he said turning away from the window and looking at me, “and talking to strangers.”