I stepped onto the train and walked with my duffel bag to the seat number on the ticket the porter gave to me.
A man in shabby clothes was sleeping in the seat next to mine.
He smelled as if he hadn’t taken a shower in days.
I sat down beside the old man, leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes.
The old man shifted in his seat.
Tenderly, he rested his scraggly cheek on my shoulder.
For the next five hours we chugged along, dozing beside each other.
He suffered from night terrors.
“What is his heart carrying?” I wondered.
He didn’t speak a single word to me, and I didn’t speak a single word to him.
It was was late into the night, for I’d caught the midnight train from Greenville, SC to Boston, MA.
I smiled at him sleepily as he shuffled around me at dawn somewhere in rural Virginia.
He didn’t have a suitcase.
He meandered down the aisle and stumbled off the train.
I closed my eyes again.
“I rested my head on your shoulder,” I thought I heard God whisper.
Thank you.”
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