The Train that Only Ran at Midnight ( Part 2 )

Before we begin, I would like you to close your eyes and breathe in and out nice and deeply. Take a few seconds to inhale, and then hold your breath for a few seconds more, and then release and breathe out. Do this a few times if you need to, while you listen to the music and you listen to my voice, give yourself time to let your body relax and your mind settle. It's important that we allow time for us to feel safe, cozy, and completely at ease. And now it's time for this week's story.

light when he gave them back. As the passengers boarded, Elias noticed more unusual luggage. A violin case that dripped sea water, a crate labeled only if singing, with no indication of what might be inside, a rolled carpet that occasionally tried to unroll itself. When the door slid shut and the train glided away once more, Elias stood watching until the last glimmer of light vanished into the bend

of the track. He did not immediately go back inside. Instead, he remained beneath the lamp post, listening to the fields and the far away owls, letting the quiet rearrange itself around him. Back in his office, he opened the ledger and wrote twelve three a m unscheduled arrival, same train, different passengers, snow suitcase delayed, shadow. He stared at the page for a long time before adding jar Glode underlined that one twice. On the third night, he brought a chair.

On the fourth he brought a thermos and a notebook separate from his official ledger, because some things felt too strange to share a book with freight schedules. On the fifth night, a gray cat appeared on the edge of the platform and sat down beside him, with the air of someone who had always intended to be there. It did not look at him, It watched the rails. You're waiting too, Elias murmured. The cat flicked one ear. At twelve o three, the train arrived, and the cat's tail

made a thoughtful loop before going still. Passengers came and went in a steady, unhurried rhythm. Elias began to recognize some of them. The woman with the snow returned, this time carrying only a scarf that trailed frost behind her. The man with the delayed shadow nodded to him as though they were colleagues. A new traveler arrived with a suitcase full of autumn leaves that tumbled out and scuttled back inside on their own. Elias started asking careful questions

long journey he ventured. One night, sometimes said a man whose shoes were wet despite the clear sky, Where too, he asked, Another not far, replied a woman who smelled the libraries. One evening, he noticed that the map the twins carried had finally given up folding itself and now lay open across three seats, showing rivers that looped in impossible ways, and towns drawn in handwriting that looked like

it belonged to several different people at once. By the seventh night, Elias no longer felt quite as though he were trespassing on his own platform. On the eighth night, he stepped inside the first carriage, again, just far enough to avoid the cold. No one stopped him. The rugs muffled his steps, the velvet seats gleamed softly. He wandered down the aisle, pretending to check for forgotten umbrellas, while

taking in every impossible object he could see. A tea service floated gently above one table, pouring itself into cups no one was currently holding. A pair of elderly men played chess with pieces that slowly changed shape when they were not being watched. Someone slept with their head against the window, and outside that window rolled a coastline Elias was certain did not belong anywhere near his town. A tall figure in a shimmering uniform approached, walking with the

quiet authority of someone who never had to hurry. You're early, the conductor said, pleasantly, I work here. Elias replied, because this seemed to explain several things. Oh good, we like professionals. Elias hesitated, then gestured vaguely at everything. Where does this train go? The conductor smiled in a way that suggested maps for advisory rather than binding. Where it's needed and where is that? The conductor tipped his hat to night. Three places that no longer exist, two that have not

started yet, and one that keeps changing its mind. Elias considered this, Do you need a station master? We have one, Oh, but he's on holiday. The conductor gave him a conspiratorial nod and drifted away. Elias returned to the platform just before the doors closed, feeling as though he had leaned over the edge of something very deep and very polite. By the twelfth night, he was greeting passengers. By the fifteenth he was keeping a separate list of recurring ones.

By the eighteenth, he had stopped pretending the midnight line was a temporary inconvenience. It was part of his station. Now he was simply the only one who noticed. Then, on the twenty first night, the train arrived and did not leave. The engine hummed unevenly, the lights dimmed, the doors stayed open. The lamp post flickered. Elias checked the clock, twelve oh three. It did not move. The wind paused halfway through a sigh, the cat froze with one paw lifted.

Elias swallowed. That seems new, he said. Into the stillness from the train stepped the conductor hat in hand. Reappear, he said, carefully, to have developed a timing part problem. The stillness felt heavier than silence usually did. It pressed against Elias's ears and settled in his chest, as though the entire world had inhaled and forgotten how to let the breath go again, and had forgotten how to let the breath go again. The lamp post above him hummed

once and then went quiet. The moth that had been circling its light hung motionless in the air, like a fleck of dust suspended in amber. Even the fields beyond the tracks appeared to have paused mid rustle, and the long grass frozen in the middle of whatever small conversation it had been having, And the long grass frozen in the middle of whatever small conversation it had been having. With the breeze. Elias glanced at his pocket watch twelve three a m. The second hand did not move. He

looked up at the station clock. Neither did that. From inside the train came a low, uncertain ticking, not rhythmic enough to be reassuring and not chaotic enough to be panic, but something in between, the sound a machine might make if it were trying to remember how it normally behaved. That seems inconvenient, Elias said, at last, because he had discovered over the past three weeks that stating the obvious was sometimes the only way to keep one's thoughts from

galloping off in unhelpful directions. Quite the conductor replied, stepping down on to the platform with a carefulness that suggested gravity itself was currently under review. Passengers leaned out of windows. The woman who borrowed fog stared at the frozen fields with concern. The man whose shadow lagged behind him looked down and frowned when he realized his shadow had stopped altogether.

Somewhere in the middle of the train, a kettle whistled weakly and then trailed off, as though uncertain whether it was allowed to finish. What sort of timing problem, Elias asked. The conductor adjusted his gloves. We have run out of midnight, Elias blinked, run out. Yes, I didn't realize that was possible. It normally isn't, the conductor admitted. But tonight we appear

to have used all of it. Elias considered this because he had discovered that considering things was better than immediately fainting. What does midnight do? It keeps us between, the conductor said, gently, between yesterday and tomorrow, between places that are finished and places that have not quite decided to begin, Between doors that are closing and doors that are thinking about opening. That sounds important, extremely and if you don't have it.

The conductor glanced back at the engine, which gave a small apologetic shudder. Then we remain here around his silent platform, his unmoving moth, his frozen cat, and the paused stars overhead. I'm not sure my station is designed for that. No station is, the conductor said kindly. Elias stood very still for several seconds, while his mind did the careful work of lining up the thoughts the way he lined up boots. What powers the train moments, the conductor replied. Elias raised

his eyebrows. Steam is more common. Steam is very straightforward, said the conductor. We are less, so what kind of moments? The conductor gestured vaguely at the air around them, waiting for kettles to boil, standing in doorways while forgetting while you went there looking out of windows when you should be doing something else, lingering after conversations, pauses, hesitations, the sort of seconds people misplace. Elias felt a slow, peculiar

recognition settle over him. I keep those in a drawer, he said. The conductor brightened. Everyone does most just call it clutter. Elias turned and went inside. The stillness followed him, wrapping the ticket office in a strange, muffled hush. Papers hovered where they had been mid flutter. The clock above the window stared back at him accusingly. He unlocked the desk drawer he had not cleaned out in years and

peered inside. It was full. There were old notes he had never thrown away because he was not sure whether they were finished with him, yet half completed lists, programs from concerts he had stayed to the end of, even though he had planned to leave early. A postcard he had bought but never sent, three different keys. He no longer remembered owning a tea bag he had forgotten in

his pocket until it became more sentiment than beverage. Elias scooped the contents gently into a wooden tray and carried it back onto the platform. The conductor watched with professional interest. These are excellent, he murmured. Elias poured them into the open panel beneath the engine, half expecting sparks or smoke, or at least a polite light warning label. Instead, the train sighed, the hum deepened somewhere inside, gears shifted. The

station clock twitched. The moth completed a loop around the lamp post and flew off. Slightly embarrassed, The cat put its raised paw down and yawned. Elias's pocket watch ticked forward twelve o four. The fields exhaled, stars resumed drifting, The engine glowed of richer blue. Passengers applauded quietly, which sounded more like rustling paper than clapping hands. The conductor beamed that should keep us going for several weeks. I

have more drawers, Elias said, cautiously, we suspected. The train departed with a gentle whistle that sounded less mournful than grateful. From then on, Elias helped, not loudly, not officially, but thoroughly. He saved minutes the way other people saved string. He tucked spare pauses into envelopes. He began keeping a small tin labeled Later, which he filled with afternoons that had gone unused and thoughts that had wandered off half way

through sentences. Each night, at twelve o three, he brought the tin on to the platform. Sometimes the conductor collected it. Sometimes a porter made of light did. Sometimes the woman with the snow waved at him and left a frost edged thank you note on the bench. The Midnight line kept running, passengers kept coming. A man returned with a suitcase now full of sunsets instead of echoes. A girl who had once carried a glowing jar stepped off with

empty hands and a relieved smile. The Twins map eventually folded itself into a tidy rectangle and refused to open again, which they took as a sign of success, Elias began to receive post cards. None had addresses, all arrived anyway. They showed floating bridges, spiral cities, forests made of glass, seas that glowed in the dark. The messages were brief, made it thank you. Still raining sideways, he pinned them above his desk. No one in town noticed anything different,

which suited him. Stations were meant to be places people passed through, not places that demanded explanations. Years went by in a gentle, ordinary way. The morning train still smelt of toast, the evening train still smelled of rain. The lamp posts still hummed, The midnight line still arrived. At twelve o three. Elias's hair went gray. The cat became a fixture. New porters came and went, none of them

staying late enough to ask questions. And every night, beneath the yellow pool of light, Elias Thorn stood with his ledger tucked under one arm and his tin of spare moments under the other, ready to supply the thin necessary pause that kept a very unusual train moving through the narrow seam Between days. He liked that the world was larger than schedules. He liked that not everything fit in boxes.

He liked that some journeys required waiting, and when the whistle drifted through the dark, soft and low and patient as breathing, Elias always smiled before checking his watch. Twelve o three a m.

light when he gave them back. As the passengers boarded, Elias noticed more unusual luggage. A violin case that dripped sea water, a crate labeled only if singing, with no indication of what might be inside. A rolled carpet that occasionally tried to unroll itself. When the door slid shut and the train glided away once more, Elias stood watching until the last glimmer of light vanished into the bend

of the tracks. He did not immediately go back inside. Instead, he remained beneath the lamp post, listening to the fields and the far away owls, letting the quiet rearrange itself around him. Back in his office, he opened the ledger and wrote twelve o three a m unscheduled arrival, same train, different passengers, snow suit case delayed shadow. He stared at the page for a long time before adding jar glowed underlined that one twice. On the third night, he brought

a chair. On the fourth, he brought a thermos and a notebook separate from his official ledger, because some things felt too strange to share a book with freight schedules. On the fifth night, a ray cat appeared on the edge of the platform and sat down beside him, with the air of someone who had always intended to be there. They did not look at him. It watched the rails. You're waiting too, Elias murmured. The cat flicked one ear. At twelve o three. The train arrived, and the cat's

tail made a thoughtful loop before going still. Passengers came and went in a steady, unhurried rhythm. Elias began to recognize some of them. The woman with the snow returned, this time carrying only a scarf that trailed frost behind her. The man with the delayed shadow nodded to him as though they were colleagues. The new traveler arrived with a suitcase full of autumn leaves that tumbled out and scuttled back inside on their own. Elias started asking careful questions.

Long journey he ventured? One night, sometimes, said a man whose shoes were wet despite the clear sky, Where too, he asked? Another not far, replied a woman who smelled the libraries. One evening, he noticed that the map the twins carried had finally given up folding itself and now lay open across three seats, showing rivers that looped in impossible ways, and towns drawn in handwriting that looked like

it belonged to several different people at once. By the seventh night, Elias no longer felt quite as though he were trespassed on his own platform. On the eighth night, he stepped inside the first carriage, again, just far enough to avoid the cold. No one stopped him. The rugs muffled his steps, the velvet seats gleamed softly. He wandered down the aisle, pretending to check for forgotten umbrellas while

taking in every impossible object he could see. A tea service floated gently above one table, pouring itself into cups no one was currently holding. A pair of elderly men played chess with pieces that slowly changed shape when they were not being watched. Someone slept with their head against the window, and outside that window rolled a coastline Elias was certain did not belong anywhere near his town. A tall figure in a shimmering uniform approached, walking with the

quiet authority of someone who never had to hurry. You're early, the conductor said, pleasantly, I work here, Elias replied, because this seemed to explain several things. Oh good, we like professionals. Elias hesitated, then gestured vaguely at everything. Where does this train go? The conductor smiled in a way that suggested maps were advisory rather than binding. Where it's needed, and

where is that? The conductor tipped his hat tonight three places that no longer exist, two that have not started yet, and one that keeps changing its mind. Elias considered this, do you need a station master? We have one? Oh, but he's on holiday. The conductor gave him a conspiratorial nod and drifted away. Elias returned to the platform just before the doors closed, feeling as though he had leaned over the edge of something very deep and very polite.

By the twelfth night, he was greeting passengers. By the fifteenth he was keeping a separate list of recurring ones. By the eighteenth he had stopped pretending the midnight line was a temporary inconvenience. It was part of his station. Now he was simply the only one who noticed. Then, on the twenty first night, the train arrived and did not leave. The engine hummed unevenly, the lights dimmed, the doors stayed open. The lamp post flickered. Elias checked the clock,

twelve o three. It did not move. The wind paused. Half way through a sigh, the cat froze with one paw lifted. Elias swallowed. That seems new, he said. Into the stillness from the train stepped the conductor, hat in hand. We appear, he said, carefully, to have developed a timing problem.

The stillness felt heavier than silence usually did. It pressed against Elias's ears and settled in his chest, as though the entire world had inhaled and forgotten how to let the breath go again, and had forgotten how to let the breath go again. The lamp post above him hummed once and then went quiet. The moth that had been circling its light hung motionless in the air, like a

fleck of dust suspended in amber. Even the fields beyond the tracks appeared to have paused mid rustle, and the long grass frozen in the middle of whatever small conversation it had been having. And the long grass frozen in the middle of whatever small conversation it had been having. With the breeze, Elias glanced at his pocket watch, twelve o three a m. The secondhand did not move. He

looked up at the station clock. Neither did that. From inside the train came a low, uncertain ticking, not rhythmic enough to be reassuring and not chaotic enough to be panic, but something in between, the sound a machine might make if it were trying to remember how it normally behaved. That seems inconvenient, Elias said, at last, because he had discovered over the past three weeks that stating the obvious was sometimes the only way to keep one's thoughts from

galloping off in unhelpful directions. Quite, the conductor replied, stepping down onto the platform with a carefulness that suggested gravity itself was currently under review. Leaned out of windows. The woman who borrowed fog stared at the frozen fields with concern. The man whose shadow lagged behind him looked down and

frowned when he realized his shadow had stopped altogether. Somewhere in the middle of the train, a kettle whistled weakly and then trailed off, as though uncertain whether it was allowed to finish. What sort of timing problem, Elias asked. The conductor adjusted his gloves. We have run out of midnight, Elias blinked, run out. Yes, I didn't realize that was possible. It normally isn't, the conductor admitted. But tonight we appear

to have used all of it. Elias considered this because he had discovered that considering things was better than immediately fainting. What does midnight do? It keeps us between, the conductor said, gently, between yesterday and tomorrow, between places that are finished and places that have not quite decided to begin, Between doors that are closing and doors that are thinking about opening. That sounds important, extremely and if you don't have it.

The conductor glanced back at the engine, which gave a small apologetic shudder, then we remain here. Elias looked around his silent platform, his unmoving moth, his frozen cat, and the paused stars overhead. I'm not sure my station is designed for that. No station is, the conductor said kindly. Elias stood very still for several seconds while his mind did the careful work of lining up the thoughts the way he lined up boots. What powers the train moments,

the conductor replied. Elias raised his eyebrows. Steam is more common. Steam is very straightforward, said the conductor. We are less, so what kind of moments? The conductor gestured vaguely at the air around them, waiting for kettles to boil. Standing in doorways while forgetting why you went there looking out of windows when you should be doing something else. Lingering after conversations, pauses, hesitations, the sort of seconds people misplaced,

Elias felt a slow, peculiar recognition settle over him. I keep those in a drawer, he said. The conductor brightened. Everyone does most just call it clutter. Elias turned and went inside. The stillness followed him, wrapping the ticket office in a strange muffled hush. Papers hovered where they had been mid flutter. The clock above the window stared back at him accusingly. He unlocked the desk doorer he had not cleaned out in years, and peered inside. It was full.

There were old notes he had never thrown away because he was not sure whether they were finished with him yet, half completed lists, programs from concerts he had stayed to the end of, even though he had planned to leave early. A postcard he had bought but never sent, three different keys he no longer remembered owning a tea bag he had forgotten in his pocket until it became more sentiment than beverage. Elias scooped the contents gently into a wooden

tray and carried it back onto the platform. The conductor watched with professional interest. These are excellent, he murmured. Elias poured them into the open panel beneath the engine, half expecting sparks or smoke, or at least a polite warning label. Instead, the train sighed, the hum deepened inside, gears shifted, the station clock twitched. The moth completed a loop around the lamp post and flew off, slightly embarrassed. The cat put

its raised paw down and yawned. Elias's pocket watch ticked forward twelve o four. The fields exhaled, stars resumed drifting. The engine glowed of richer blue. Passengers applauded quietly, which sounded more like rustling paper than clapping hands. The conductor beamed, that should keep us going for several weeks. I have more drawers, Elias said, cautiously. We suspected. The train departed with a gentle whistle that sounded less mournful than grateful.

From then on, Elias helped, not loudly, not officially, but thoroughly. He saved minutes the way other people saved string. He tucked spare pauses into envelopes. He began keeping a small tin, labeled Later, which he filled with afternoons that had gone unused and thoughts that had wandered off halfway through sentences. Each night, at twelve o three, he brought the tin onto the platform. Sometimes the conductor collected it. Sometimes a

porter made of light did. Sometimes the woman with the snow waved at him and left a frost edged thank you note on the bench. The midnight line kept running, pass kept coming. A man returned with a suitcase, now full of sunsets instead of echoes. A girl who had once carried a glowing jar stepped off with empty hands and a relieved smile. The Twins map eventually folded itself into a tidy rectangle and refused to open again, which they took as a sign of success. Elias began to

receive postcards. None had addresses, All arrived anyway. They showed floating bridges, spiral cities, forests made of glass, seas that glowed in the dark. The messages were brief, made it thank you, Still raining sideways, he pinned them above his desk. No one in town noticed anything different, which suited him. Stations were meant to be places people passed through, not places that demanded explanations. Years went by in a gentle, ordinary way. The morning train still smelled of toast, the

evening train still smelled of rain. The lamp posts still hummed, the midnight line still arrived. At twelve o three, Elias's hair went gray. The cat became a fixture. New porters came and went, none of them staying late enough to ask questions, and every night. Beneath the yellow pool of light, Elias Thorn stood with his ledger tucked under one arm and his tin of spare moments under the other, ready to supply the thin necessary pause that kept a very

unusual train moving through the narrow seam between days. He liked that the world was larger than schedules. He liked that not everything fit in boxes. He liked that some journeys required waiting. And when the whistle drifted through the dark, soft and low and patient as breathing, Elias always smiled before checking his watch. Twelve o three a m.