Riding on a diesel rail car on a rural line in Japan. It is late at night and there are only a couple of passengers aboard. It is warm inside the cabin, a respite from the bitterly cold air outside. The train chugs and clatters along hypnotically and time ceases to matter. We may be on a perpetual journey across the universe.
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Outside dark shapes hint at mountains silhouetted against the night sky. Occasionally the flash of light from a house where inhabitants go about their lives. A small town, vending machines, level crossings all come and go, sometimes with a brief pause.
Eventually we reach our terminus. It is nowhere. A nondescript town, the junction for other lines but without any but a return service this night. I step outside, hungry, not having had more than a measly bite for lunch, let alone dinner.
I emerge into the chill. I have seen, on the outskirts of the town, a ugly grey-brown multistorey chain hotel. I set off along the sleeping streets towards it. The gaudy flashing lights of a pachinko parlour provide some relief, then it is just moonlight again.
There is still light from the small hotel lobby. I enter, ask for a room, of which they have plenty vacant. The furniture is worn and dated, red brown wood and scuffed, faded green carpet and trimmings. But it is clean and adequate for the night.
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No open restaurant or eatery is in sight, but an isolated convenience store, like this hotel, serves the highway traffic. I purchase hot buns, salad and pot noodles that I cook using boiling water from the kettle in my hotel room. Not a bad meal, considering.
Then, without anything else to do, I watch a movie on my phone until it is time to sleep.