Seventeen hours west on the Lakeshore Limited. At 3pm, the sun pours sideways across frozen snow puddles; the winter has been mild. I've bever been on this line before.
Earlier, the train paused just outside of Boston, between stops. We powered down, overhead ventilation fans falling silent. No one on the car stirred, as if we were all as frozen as the tracks. Cars passed us by outside. Moments snuck by, and someone in the back whispered, "Is someone getting picked up here?"
Slowly, the crinkling of food bags and the thunking of fingers against laptops pick up again, and we looked around at the offenders as if they were speaking loudly in the theater. After fifteen minutes on the train, the steady howl of the tracks ringing beneath our wheels already pervaded our thoughts so much that to sit in perfect silence felt both a novelty and intensely disturbing.
When the power came back on, the rush of air through the vents brought a palpable sense of releif as I released a breath I didn't realize I was holding. "Sorry about the wait, folks," our conductor announced. I think he almost meant it.