The silence after the last train

I was on the platform at 5:47 a.m., the kind of hour where the world feels like it’s holding its breath. The last train had just passed, and the tracks still hummed—like a memory of motion. I stood there for ten minutes, listening to how the air changed when the sound left. It wasn’t quiet, exactly. More like the space between notes in a song you’ve heard too many times. Salt on my lips from the sea wind off the docks. Felt like I’d been waiting for this moment my whole life, even though I didn’t know what it was.