Halfway There

It’s been hazy outside for a while now; not quite a full day, but nearly. For some ungodly reason, the windows around our area have been shut and the only way to open them would require waking those sleeping bodies whose heads lay centimeters from access to air. For another ungodly reason, no one else seems to care they are sitting in stale humid air. When someone walks past me to the bathroom or garbage area, it provides a welcome breeze; that’s how hot it is. Even though my body is covered in a thin sheen of sweat, I drink warmish green tea in a feeble attempt to feel awake and normal, although there’s nothing normal about spending three and a half days on a train. We are more than halfway through our 86-hour journey.

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There’s a brand new crop of people in our compartments. They are unfriendly to us, their English-speaking train neighbors, but they are unfriendly to one another as well. They sleep, arms strewn over their faces and bodies, they read, do puzzles in the paper, play with their phones, stare into the small surrounding space or out the windows. The young man sitting across from me who replaced Helena is listening to a small digital music device after finishing up a Russian-ized Men’s Health magazine.

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Russians eat tomatoes like apples.