I awoke with the sun, but I didn’t hurry to start my day.

The train felt calm and quiet under me.

Our car didn’t rock or sway against the tracks.

Shadows didn’t pass the windows.

I lay in wait, praying for our arrival in Varanasi, but feeling more and more doubtful with every passing second.

When I looked through the window, I saw a station.

I’d awoken to find ourselves at this same station hours ago. We were still there.

Slowly, I checked my phone.

After traveling for ten hours, my phone revealed that we were only in Lucknow—not halfway to our destination.

Dani leaned down from her bunk.

“Are we there?”

I felt horrible breaking the news.

We sat in our beds and talked about what we would lose with another day gone.

We tried to rebuild Varanasi into something smaller, something that could still fit into whatever time remained.

The train didn’t care either way. It stayed where it was, then moved, then stopped again, as if time were negotiable only in one direction.

We ate our bruised bananas for breakfast and wished we’d brought more food, but we never expected to be here this long.

Then we sat through the hours and watched the shadows and the scenery change through the windows.

Nobody rode this train with us. At twenty-four hours late to board, no one else had been stubborn or foolish enough to enter this train to start with.

Now, we were stuck—here—wherever here was.

it started.

It stopped.

It started again.

After a while, it started to feel like that was the point.

Then somewhere outside, another train passed us, its wind shaking our cabin and breaking our silence with perceived motion.

I kept checking the map even though nothing about it changed. Every time I looked, our dot had moved, yet we were still somewhere else.

When sun neared the horizon, I sat on the ladder outside and watched the world pass.

The sun, the breeze, and the warmth felt nice.

Ahead of us, we rolled through rice patties and rural villages.

Women walked along the tracks balancing colorful baskets on their head.

Farmers with leathery skin picked fruit in the sun.

They moved with the train and fell behind as we overtook them again.

Behind me, the train stretched across the plain, each car following the last around a distant curve until I could no longer tell where it ended.

It wasn’t taking us to Varanasi.

It was simply going there, and we happened to be inside.