Night Trains Across Eastern Europe

The seat reclines about eleven degrees and the woman across from me has been asleep since Katowice, coat pulled up to her chin like a blanket she brought from home. I’m awake for the border crossing, mostly out of habit.

A flight erases the distance. A night train makes you sit in it.

Somewhere after 3 a.m. the train stops at a station with no platform lights on, and for a few minutes it feels like the whole continent is asleep except this one carriage.

I could fly this route in ninety minutes. I keep taking the train instead, for reasons that have less to do with money than with wanting to feel the distance in my back the next morning.