When Hal Hines see's the moving picture of his life pass before him out of a moving train, through the quietness of mornings, in the empty city squares, with no up nor down but just an immediate forward path through the darkness, he finds reason in his loneliness. In a world devoid of meaning, every passing present becomes glorious, alive, eternal and therefore both incomparably beautiful and sad to him. Reminiscing about his childhood, about past friends and his family, all the heartache and sadness, despair and enlightenment. Hal Hines struggles and fights for reason and truth amidst the expanding modern world which promises little and the far away world which promises much more than he's capable of understanding, the book charts the battle which ensues, of soul and heart and insignificant truth, as per the human condition, a phantom life.