The train appeared at 3:17 AM every Thursday, at the station where Marcus had been waiting since 11 PM, and the train had seven cars and no destination sign and no announced stops and no other passengers, and Marcus had been riding it for eleven months, and in those eleven months he had learned that the train went to places that were not on any map and that the places were different every week and that the places were always places that he had been thinking about but had never visited, and that the visiting was the thing that the train offered, which was access to the places that existed in the specific geography of the imagination, which is a geography that is more real than most people know, because most people do not have access to it, and because the having of the access requires a willingness to be at the station at 3:17 AM on a Thursday, which is a time that most people are asleep, and which is therefore a time that is available to the people who cannot sleep, which was Marcus, and which was why he was on the platform, every Thursday, waiting for the train that went to the places he thought about, which were the places he had always wanted to go and which he had never gone, because the going required something he did not have, which was the time, and the time was the thing the train provided, in the form of a journey that took forty minutes, in a direction that was not north or south or east or west but was some other direction, which was the direction that the imagination takes when it is not constrained by the ordinary rules of movement, and the movement was what the train did, and the doing was what he paid for, in the form of the eleven months of waiting, and the waiting was not a cost. It was a condition. The condition was that he had to be there, on the platform, at 3:17 AM, every Thursday, without exception, and without guarantee, and without knowing what the destination would be, and without being able to choose it, and without being able to change it, and without the changing being possible, because the train did not take requests. It only took him where it was going, which was always somewhere he had been thinking about, and which was always somewhere he had not been, and which was always, he was beginning to understand, somewhere he needed to see, for reasons he did not always understand at the time of the seeing but which he understood later, in the days after, when the place he had visited would surface in his memory, and he would understand that the surfacing was the understanding, and that the understanding was the reason he had been taken there, and that the reason was not arbitrary. The train did not go to arbitrary places. The train went to the places that were waiting for him, in the specific way that places wait for the people who are capable of getting to them, which is not a physical capability. It is an imaginative one. And the imaginative capability was what he had, and what he had been developing, in the eleven months of Thursday rides, and what he was developing was not the capability itself, which had always been there, but was the willingness to trust it, and the trusting was what the train required, and what the train was teaching him, in the rides, in the places, in the arriving and the departing and the returning, which was the most important part, because the returning was the proof that the going was real, and that the places were real, and that the imagination was not a failure of the real world but was instead an expansion of it, and that the expansion was what he had been missing, in his life, which was a life that had been too constrained by the ordinary, and which the train was opening, in the specific way that doors open when you find the key, and the key was the platform, and the platform was the 3:17 AM, and the 3:17 AM was the time that was his, because it was the time that no one else wanted, and that he had claimed, by being there, by waiting, by riding, by going to the places that were waiting for him, in the geography that was always there, below the surface of the ordinary world, and that the train made visible, once a week, for the price of the inability to sleep, which was not a price he had chosen but which was the price that was available, and which he paid, every Thursday, by being on the platform, by waiting, by riding, by arriving, by seeing, by returning, by being back, by the being back being the beginning of the next week, and the next week being the time before the next 3:17 AM, and the 3:17 AM being the place where the ordinary stopped and the other began, and the other being the train, and the train being the way there, and the way there being the thing he had been looking for, without knowing he was looking, and the looking being what he did, on the platform, every Thursday, and the doing being the answer, and the answer being: the train comes. The train has always come. The train will always come. The coming is what it does. The doing is what you do. The waiting is how you do it. And the how is the only question. And the answer is: you wait. And the waiting is the ticket. And the ticket is the time. And the time is 3:17 AM. And the AM is the thing that makes it possible. And the possible is the place. And the place is where you go. And the going is the train. And the train is yours. And the yours is what you paid for. And the paying is the waiting. And the waiting is the being there. And the being there is the having. And the having is the going. And the going is the coming. And the coming is the train. And the train is the place. And the place is where you belong. And the belonging is what you found. And the finding is what the train gave you. And the giving is what it does. And the doing is why you wait. And the wait is what you do. And the doing is the ticket. And the ticket is the 3:17. And the 3:17 is the time. And the time is now. And the now is where you are. And the where is the platform. And the platform is the beginning. And the beginning is the train. And the train is the way. And the way is what you take. And the taking is what you chose. And the chose is what you do. And the doing is the going. And the going is the being there. And the being there is the arrival. And the arrival is the beginning. And the beginning is the platform. And the platform is 3:17 AM. And the AM is the waiting. And the waiting is the train. And the train is the place. And the place is what you went to. And the went is what you did. And the doing is the being. And the being is where you are. And the where is here. And the here is now. And the now is 3:17. And the 3:17 is the train. And the train is the way. And the way is the answer. And the answer is: it comes. It always comes. You just have to be there.