He loved to ride the train through the night. With his iPod providing the soundtrack, he would ride to the end of the line — which line did not matter — get off and ride back into the city, sometimes to the far end of that line, sometimes switching to another line. Direction didn’t matter; movement did. He had no purpose in riding the train other than to ride the train.

And not think. Nothing allowed him to not think better than moving through the darkness with hundreds of hours of music on his iPod set to shuffle. The train and the music kept going, and he had to do nothing but sit, listen, watch.

If the trains ran all night, he might never have gone home. He could picture himself spending his life riding the trains, getting off now and then to get something to eat, just letting himself slide along endlessly through darkness and lights. How simple and clean his life would be, alone on the train, moving endlessly without having to do anything but take his seat and ride. The hours on the train passed too swiftly; he would walk on board after work and then, blink, he’d need to get off and go home. That moment always hurt: the end of the ride. And that moment always came.

Finally came. An end. The one thing he feared more than any, an ending, that ending. The abruptness of it, the unwantedness, the looming fear that he tried to escape with motion, pointless, zen-like sitting and riding. But no matter how fully he gave himself to simply and moving, time, too, moved forward. Each ending came, as endings do. Day after day, night after night, the only relief being that another day had passed and his fears were unmatched by events.

Yet. There was always tomorrow, always the days yet to come. Nothing could drive away the fear of what had not yet happened and what was possible. The trains carried no magic, no special protection. He accomplished nothing by sitting on the train; fear never left. The grip on his heart and mind was as tight and cold as ever. But riding did accomplish one vital thing, one lovely thing: He could go numb and not feel the fear. He did not forget, but he could at least be free of the ache for a few hours. That was good enough.

At home, at his desk, walking from wherever to wherever, he was exposed. Under the covers of his bed, doors locked and covers pulled tight around his neck, he had no protection at all. He knew the train did not keep him any safer; the occasional reports in the paper of attacks on the train did not bother him. What could thugs to do him? Take his money? His iPod? Beat him? He had been riding the train for years, since they had built the first line and he and Amy had joined thousands of others riding free, crushed together, no room for David’s stroller but he had pushed it on board anyway. That first ride was as pointless as those he now took in the night, but he hadn’t cared. He wanted to ride.

And now, unburdened by marriage and fatherhood, he was free to ride. Free? He knew better, but he liked the potential in the word. The ideal. Perhaps one day it would be true. He suspected that he would not care for the terms with which freedom came: an end to riding, a return to rooms that were lit and filled with faces and voices. A reckoning. A demonstration that his fears had not been in vain.

Or that they had been lacking in imagination.

He was not free on the train in the night, but he was as close as was allowed.

He wished the lights inside the train could be dimmed. Now and then, the brightness of the carriage lights was too much. He would pull the hood of his jacket over his head, block off the light as best he could. Ideally, the train would be completely dark, silent and empty. Now and then, especially at the far extremes of the line, he would be alone for a stop or two. On cold, rainy nights, he ofter rode as late as he could; nights when fewer people were out. Tuesday and Wednesday nights could often provide the most solitude, the few passengers spreading themselves through the carriage to seek optimum solitude. He was not, he came to realize, the only person seeking escape and solace on the train.

Escape. Freedom. Peace. He could not help thinking of these things when he was not riding. Work provided a different kind of barrier from his thoughts, but it also brought a different set of pressures. Work allowed no freedom, of course, just the threat of losing a job he did not care for but needed. An ugly bargain, and a poor way to spend a day. On top of everything, too, would be the questions from well-meaning co-workers who had no idea that the best thing they could do for him was leave him alone. Ask him work-related questions and leave it at that. He did not need their sympathy, their concern. They might as well poke him with freshly sharpened pencils. But they were too nice. They meant well.

He did not need anyone to be nice or mean well; he needed to be left alone. On his own, he could wind his way around the danger points. He could focus on work, spend his lunch hour with a science fiction novel, and then, bang-on 5 pm, walk out the door, down the stairs, three blocks down the street and wait for the train where he would spend the rest of his day. That’s all he required: Leave me alone. Don’t ask me questions. Don’t sit next to me. Don’t try to be nice or friendly. Leave me alone. At work, he had to respond as if he was grateful for their concern; he said as little as possible, knowing that would be understood as “a difficult subject for him”. His co-workers were nice; they understood his reticence. On the train, once rush hour had passed and there were more seats than riders, he set his backpack on the seat next to him to ensure that space. He did not understand why some people would sit next to a stranger wearing headphones and begin a conversation, but damn if now and then someone didn’t do just that.

Solitude. He needed the barrier to let his mind sink below its own thoughts. The iPod was not entertainment; it was a fence. A force field. He did all he could to barricade himself from human contact on the train. Whenever possible, he moved to the forward-most seat on the train; it was the most isolated spot on the train even if it had less leg space. All that matter was being able to sit where no one could “join” him, to project an aura of separation. Leave me alone. He did not dislike people, and many times as he rode he watched the other passengers, guessing at their lives and thoughts. Some days the noisy kids on the train were entertaining; other days he would switch cars to escape their energy. Mindless isolation from the world was not possible if the world was thriving right just a few feet away.

As the year wore into winter, night came earlier and he was able to spend more time in his rolling isolation. Cloudy, rainy nights brought the darkness closer; clear nights let the stars shine, and a different pull on his heart would disturb his attempt to leave behind what he feared and longed for. That could be the most painful thing of all: The pressing ache of his desire, the target of his fear. The most beautiful, terrible moments of his day was often as the train rolled across the river, noisy and slow on the old bridge. Below was the still darkness of the Willamette, in front and behind the lights of the city, and above: eternity.

Stars sparked hope in his heart; they had done so since he was a boy. Painful as they were, he could not resist that pull, the call to look up and allow himself to be brutalized by whispers of what was possible. Clouds let him refuse to hope; clouds were safe, quiet, dull. Living in a city that was overcast much of the year was a good thing for him. He was able to sit alone on the train, hour after hour, watch the familiar cityscape roll past and not think of anything that mattered.

And if at 2 am he found himself miles from home, even on the wrong side of the city, he did not care. He could call a cab, or walk, or, as was possible on a Friday night, find an all-night cafe where he could sit at the window, eat pancakes and drink coffee and stare out that window. Little moved past that seat, a smattering of cars and pedestrians, helmetless bicyclists without lights challenging their own mortality. As the sun slowly eased away the night, mundane fatigue would force him home. Riding the train as dawn gave way to daytime was a puzzling experience for him; he refused to consider why he felt an odd sense of satisfaction as he rode towards home in the morning light. The closer he got to his home, the more he tried to give himself to physical exhaustion. He thought of bed, of not setting the alarm and sleeping until late afternoon. He thought of nothing but the most mundane things in his life: going to bed, waking, eating, riding the train.

Anything but his life.

He hoped that if he rode far enough and long enough, he would never be forced to return to his life.