The next morning we pushed through New Delhi Railway Station. The smells of chai and diesel floated over the tracks.

A vendor shouted over a portable loudspeaker.

Box’s of live chickens were stacked along the platform.

Our carriage was already full, the bench seats holding people the way a shelf holds books.

We found our places anyway, showing our tickets and watching people shuffled until we could sit.

My brother took the seat nearest the window.

I took the edge.

The vinyl felt warm.

Once the train pulled out, the city thinned into tents and agriculture.

I watched families crouched close to the rails, cooking over small fires. Men stood with their backs turned, a few steps from the tracks.

I looked away when the window framed someone looking back.

Our agent had reserved us seats, but the reservation felt like a suggestion.

If I leaned forward, someone rested on the backrest behind me.

If I left a strip of bench, a hip found it.

When I shifted my feet, a boy slid into the space between my knees.

Each time I stood to stretch, I came back to find someone else in my spot, smiling as if we were playing a game I hadn’t agreed to.

Beggars moved down the aisle in slow traffic. One man stopped beside me and placed his hand on my shin as if we were friends. His eyes stayed on my face.

“Chale jao,” I said, and he lifted his hand away.

A moment later he set it back down, patient. I repeated myself. He waited me out.

There was no room to argue without making a scene, and there was no room for a scene.

I stared out the window and tried to keep my body small.

~

Later, I felt something wet hit the side of my face.

I blinked and wiped it with my sleeve before I could think. Then I followed the drip back to its source: a kid—maybe fifteen—coming out of the toilet area and walking down the aisle with his left hand held out.

He flicked his fingers as he went, scattering little arcs of water onto shoulders and seatbacks.

The bathroom had a hole in the floor. No sink.

A plastic bucket sat inside with cloudy water and a dented metal cup.

I’d seen men go in and come out with their hands dripping—shaking them off wherever they stood.

I felt my face again. The drops on my cheek suddenly had a history.

I started to stand up.

The words were there in my throat. Then the kid flicked his hand again and no one reacted.

A man beside me kept reading his paper.

A woman adjusted her sari and looked past the boy without flinching.

I sat back down and took out my hand sanitizer and rubbed until my palms burned a little.

To distract me, my brother told me about a train he once took to Varanasi.

He described twelve hours upright in a crush of bodies, then climbing onto a baggage rack when he finally found space.

He said it like a campfire story, but his eyes stayed on my face to see how I was doing.

I tried to laugh. I didn’t do a great job.

After a while he nodded toward the door at the end of the carriage.

It was open.

The metal steps hung over the tracks.

We walked down the aisle and stood at the doorway.

Wind slapped the sweat off my skin.

The sound of the wheels filled my teeth.

He stepped out first, holding the rail with one hand.

I followed him onto the narrow ledge and kept my other hand locked on the handle.

For the next hour we rode there, half outside the train, watching the ground blur inches beneath us.

The air smelled cleaner out there, like rust and dirt dust, which at least felt honest.

~

At some point the engine jerked and the train slowed onto a side spur.

The countryside pressed in—dark trees, wet earth, a few lights far off.

People jumped down. We did too—because everyone did.

A dozen men ran into the trees without speaking. They didn’t look back. Behind them, the train waited, idling, lights shaking with the vibration.

Then the couplers clanked. The cars tugged forward.

We ran beside our carriage, hands sliding on the painted metal, and pulled ourselves up as it gathered speed.

Inside, the aisle had filled again.

Someone had taken our seats.