The feeling arises at the most obvious moments, or the least so: in a commuter-train lavatory, or while on a long airport layover caused by a weather delay, or caught beneath an awning because of a sudden rain, with or without company. Unexpected disruptions in the regular passage of time; moments in which strangers become visible, or intimates become strange. The intuition of an absurdity that can be as little apprehended as it can be flicked away: some solid understanding that overwrites, for an instant, whatever seemed, a moment before, to be so indisputable—so felt—so known. How to name it? “Alive, alive, alive,” I sometimes involuntarily whisper, but that isn’t the whole story. “Of life” comes closer, though it rings less. Of; a part. No us without them; no this without me; no me without you. Increasingly, an added echo: “despite, despite, despite.” I pee, leaning. I get up, shoulder falling to the soft plastic wall. I think of S; even thoughts about not-S are now thoughts of S.

The train rights itself and I unlock the door; the light goes off, indicating something to everyone who sees.

It was a small difference, but notable—a thing not remarkable in itself, but remarkable for its distinction from the status quo. The conductor, a familiar face, a thirty-something, brown-haired white guy, tall, generic in a way the word seems designed to describe, someone I’d overheard many times detailing to his bored colleagues the circumstances of his divorce (“It was false advertising, you know? She was, like, mentally ill.”), for the first time swung through the café car to announce that we’d have to vacate it an hour before the train reached its terminus. “Get your things and find a seat in one of the main cars.”

We protested. I wasn’t the only one who took this train regularly. A college student, grad student, maybe, tattooed and bespectacled, stared up at him: “I’ve always been able to stay here until my stop.” The student’s table was strewn with a plugged-in, sticker-covered laptop, an eight-and-a-half-by-eleven reader with a two-inch tape binding, a pair of vintage sunglasses, a tube of hand lotion, a floral-patterned, wax-cloth pencil case. “She has to do inventory,” the conductor said. “She’s counting thousands of dollars back there. I’m not saying any of you all’s going to steal it, but you’ve gotta find a seat in there. Seven minutes. You’re gonna want to pack that stuff up.”