On the train this morning I sat next to a boy engrossed in the hardcover volume he cradled in his hands. I eyed those creamy pages flagged in blocks of red along the edges like stepping stones or possibly even stairs; and wondered to myself A dictionary, of all things while the engine hummed and the carriage swayed and the wheels rattled once in a while. A solar searchlight scanned our faces through rain-misted windows at precisely 7:30am and the boy had hair like twisted yarn, a boring mudwater brown speckled in water shadows and sun. And you should trust me because I know: there is nothing like reading next to a window with the sun out right after the rain. I was envious of him. He had the seat, the light and a travel guide to Peru (I’ve realized that it wasn’t a dictionary by now) on this monotonic metallic Melburnian morning. The word Li-ma brimmed with intensity and colour. His headphones were the size of my fists and the sound of his music pierced into mine, ran along with the melodies lightly in the strange steps of a foreign dance. This must be the magic of classical music, made of notes that fit like hands sliding into water between the peaks of waves. There is an infinity of possibilities to two rhythms, or the safety of walls to a room of one’s own— an inevitable choice, they say.

I stood on my side of the crossing and stared into the solid black of evening draped above the streetlights and the clattering of the rail-crossing bells and the bus shelter on the other side. It was grey and overcast when I left the city on a train bound homeward not so long ago. Still day-lit. I start thinking about inkblots. If the sky here was a blot of watered ink I’d be staring into the centre of it. Then it’d get lighter, lighter, and fade steadily - eventually - into its edges. I imagine a monochromatic landscape and a train running from one end to the other, back and forth: light to dark to light to dark to light. Should I take a train back, and test the accuracy and limitations of imagination? Perhaps, if one really believed in the power of thought. Perhaps then a city of one’s own might forever remain in daylight. I am pondering this when the train pierces a sudden hoot into the dark air and begins to move off. Metal wheels smear past like a streak of ebony smoke beneath a row of aluminium boats. I like watching the lighted windows flash by. I find it oddly comforting and wish train rides were never-ending.