The carriage is not empty in the ordinary sense. Every seat holds evidence of someone who has just stepped away: an open crossword, a knitted glove, a glass of water with a paper umbrella floating in it. There are no people. You look through the next doorway and see exactly the same carriage, right down to the water. The umbrella turns a little as you watch. Quill offers two tickets. One shines like sunrise. The other holds a tiny, moving constellation. The morning service and the long way round. Both include tea. Neither guarantees that you will like the weather when you arrive. You ask whether he is taking you somewhere you cannot return from. His ears flatten, offended on behalf of his profession. This is a railway. A return journey is rather the point. You may leave at any proper station. Please tell a member of staff before stepping into an uncompleted metaphor. He points out a window. Outside is your father's kitchen. The old green clock hangs above the stove. Your father stands with his back to you, washing the biscuit tin. You reach for the glass. The kitchen slides away, replaced by a field of sleeping wind turbines. Places you might go. Things you might do. We carry the journeys people keep putting off. Most of them are much shorter than their owners imagine. You ask why the train is waiting in a station which closed twenty years ago. Quill takes a breath. The two tickets flutter between his fingers. We should have reached morning by now. Tonight we cannot quite manage the last minute. I had hoped a new passenger might notice something the staff have stopped seeing. The carriage gives a small, embarrassed shudder. The crossword fills in one answer by itself, then rubs it out. Quill holds the tickets steady. This time, the choice feels like an invitation rather than a trick.
A midnight train has lost its final minute. Follow a silver fox through impossible stations, and find your own way to morning.
Listen closely. Choose carefully. Carry the consequences.
Every path leaves a different story.