Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to Sleepy Stories. I'm your host, Lucy,
Speaker 1: and my friends and I will be reading you a
Speaker 1: sleepy bedtime story every week to relax you and to
Speaker 1: help you to drift off into a RESTful sleep. From
Speaker 1: time to time, we will also read you a relaxing,
Speaker 1: peaceful meditation that will take you somewhere beautiful and calming.
Speaker 1: Once we have read the stories, we will then read
Speaker 1: them a second time, but this time they will be
Speaker 1: ready even slower. This will help you to relax even more.
Speaker 1: Before we begin, I would like you to close your
Speaker 1: eyes and breathe in and out nice and deeply. Take
Speaker 1: a few seconds to inhale, and then hold your breath
Speaker 1: for a few seconds more, and then release and breathe out.
Speaker 1: Do this a few times if you need to, while
Speaker 1: you listen to the music and you listen to my voice,
Speaker 1: give yourself time to let your body relax and your
Speaker 1: mind settle. It's important that we allow time for us
Speaker 1: to feel safe, cozy, and completely at ease. And now
Speaker 1: it's time for this week's story.
Speaker 2: A girl followed cradling a jar that glowed faintly green
Speaker 2: and illuminated her face from below. Good evening, Elias said,
Speaker 2: because he had discovered that politeness was the only tool,
Speaker 2: was the only tool he owned that fit this situation.
Speaker 2: They nodded to him, smiling, as though they were boarding
Speaker 2: a perfectly normal train to somewhere per directly ordinary tickets. Please,
Speaker 2: They handed them over again. The paper shimmered, then settled again.
Speaker 2: They were stamped for midnight again. His hands felt oddly
Speaker 2: light when he gave them back. As the passengers boarded,
Speaker 2: Elias noticed more unusual luggage. A violin case that dripped
Speaker 2: sea water, a crate labeled only if singing, with no
Speaker 2: indication of what might be inside, a rolled carpet that
Speaker 2: occasionally tried to unroll itself. When the door slid shut
Speaker 2: and the train glided away once more, Elias stood watching
Speaker 2: until the last glimmer of light vanished into the bend
Speaker 2: of the track. He did not immediately go back inside. Instead,
Speaker 2: he remained beneath the lamp post, listening to the fields
Speaker 2: and the far away owls, letting the quiet rearrange itself
Speaker 2: around him. Back in his office, he opened the ledger
Speaker 2: and wrote twelve three a m unscheduled arrival, same train,
Speaker 2: different passengers, snow suitcase delayed, shadow. He stared at the
Speaker 2: page for a long time before adding jar Glode underlined
Speaker 2: that one twice. On the third night, he brought a chair.
Speaker 2: On the fourth he brought a thermos and a notebook
Speaker 2: separate from his official ledger, because some things felt too
Speaker 2: strange to share a book with freight schedules. On the
Speaker 2: fifth night, a gray cat appeared on the edge of
Speaker 2: the platform and sat down beside him, with the air
Speaker 2: of someone who had always intended to be there. It
Speaker 2: did not look at him, It watched the rails. You're
Speaker 2: waiting too, Elias murmured. The cat flicked one ear. At
Speaker 2: twelve o three, the train arrived, and the cat's tail
Speaker 2: made a thoughtful loop before going still. Passengers came and
Speaker 2: went in a steady, unhurried rhythm. Elias began to recognize
Speaker 2: some of them. The woman with the snow returned, this
Speaker 2: time carrying only a scarf that trailed frost behind her.
Speaker 2: The man with the delayed shadow nodded to him as
Speaker 2: though they were colleagues. A new traveler arrived with a
Speaker 2: suitcase full of autumn leaves that tumbled out and scuttled
Speaker 2: back inside on their own. Elias started asking careful questions
Speaker 2: long journey he ventured. One night, sometimes said a man
Speaker 2: whose shoes were wet despite the clear sky, Where too,
Speaker 2: he asked, Another not far, replied a woman who smelled
Speaker 2: the libraries. One evening, he noticed that the map the
Speaker 2: twins carried had finally given up folding itself and now
Speaker 2: lay open across three seats, showing rivers that looped in
Speaker 2: impossible ways, and towns drawn in handwriting that looked like
Speaker 2: it belonged to several different people at once. By the
Speaker 2: seventh night, Elias no longer felt quite as though he
Speaker 2: were trespassing on his own platform. On the eighth night,
Speaker 2: he stepped inside the first carriage, again, just far enough
Speaker 2: to avoid the cold. No one stopped him. The rugs
Speaker 2: muffled his steps, the velvet seats gleamed softly. He wandered
Speaker 2: down the aisle, pretending to check for forgotten umbrellas, while
Speaker 2: taking in every impossible object he could see. A tea
Speaker 2: service floated gently above one table, pouring itself into cups
Speaker 2: no one was currently holding. A pair of elderly men
Speaker 2: played chess with pieces that slowly changed shape when they
Speaker 2: were not being watched. Someone slept with their head against
Speaker 2: the window, and outside that window rolled a coastline Elias
Speaker 2: was certain did not belong anywhere near his town. A
Speaker 2: tall figure in a shimmering uniform approached, walking with the
Speaker 2: quiet authority of someone who never had to hurry. You're early,
Speaker 2: the conductor said, pleasantly, I work here. Elias replied, because
Speaker 2: this seemed to explain several things. Oh good, we like professionals.
Speaker 2: Elias hesitated, then gestured vaguely at everything. Where does this
Speaker 2: train go? The conductor smiled in a way that suggested
Speaker 2: maps for advisory rather than binding. Where it's needed and
Speaker 2: where is that? The conductor tipped his hat to night.
Speaker 2: Three places that no longer exist, two that have not
Speaker 2: started yet, and one that keeps changing its mind. Elias
Speaker 2: considered this, Do you need a station master? We have one, Oh,
Speaker 2: but he's on holiday. The conductor gave him a conspiratorial
Speaker 2: nod and drifted away. Elias returned to the platform just
Speaker 2: before the doors closed, feeling as though he had leaned
Speaker 2: over the edge of something very deep and very polite.
Speaker 2: By the twelfth night, he was greeting passengers. By the
Speaker 2: fifteenth he was keeping a separate list of recurring ones.
Speaker 2: By the eighteenth, he had stopped pretending the midnight line
Speaker 2: was a temporary inconvenience. It was part of his station.
Speaker 2: Now he was simply the only one who noticed. Then,
Speaker 2: on the twenty first night, the train arrived and did
Speaker 2: not leave. The engine hummed unevenly, the lights dimmed, the
Speaker 2: doors stayed open. The lamp post flickered. Elias checked the clock,
Speaker 2: twelve oh three. It did not move. The wind paused
Speaker 2: halfway through a sigh, the cat froze with one paw lifted.
Speaker 2: Elias swallowed. That seems new, he said. Into the stillness
Speaker 2: from the train stepped the conductor hat in hand. Reappear,
Speaker 2: he said, carefully, to have developed a timing part problem.
Speaker 2: The stillness felt heavier than silence usually did. It pressed
Speaker 2: against Elias's ears and settled in his chest, as though
Speaker 2: the entire world had inhaled and forgotten how to let
Speaker 2: the breath go again, and had forgotten how to let
Speaker 2: the breath go again. The lamp post above him hummed
Speaker 2: once and then went quiet. The moth that had been
Speaker 2: circling its light hung motionless in the air, like a
Speaker 2: fleck of dust suspended in amber. Even the fields beyond
Speaker 2: the tracks appeared to have paused mid rustle, and the
Speaker 2: long grass frozen in the middle of whatever small conversation
Speaker 2: it had been having, And the long grass frozen in
Speaker 2: the middle of whatever small conversation it had been having.
Speaker 2: With the breeze. Elias glanced at his pocket watch twelve
Speaker 2: three a m. The second hand did not move. He
Speaker 2: looked up at the station clock. Neither did that. From
Speaker 2: inside the train came a low, uncertain ticking, not rhythmic
Speaker 2: enough to be reassuring and not chaotic enough to be panic,
Speaker 2: but something in between, the sound a machine might make
Speaker 2: if it were trying to remember how it normally behaved.
Speaker 2: That seems inconvenient, Elias said, at last, because he had
Speaker 2: discovered over the past three weeks that stating the obvious
Speaker 2: was sometimes the only way to keep one's thoughts from
Speaker 2: galloping off in unhelpful directions. Quite the conductor replied, stepping
Speaker 2: down on to the platform with a carefulness that suggested
Speaker 2: gravity itself was currently under review. Passengers leaned out of windows.
Speaker 2: The woman who borrowed fog stared at the frozen fields
Speaker 2: with concern. The man whose shadow lagged behind him looked
Speaker 2: down and frowned when he realized his shadow had stopped altogether.
Speaker 2: Somewhere in the middle of the train, a kettle whistled
Speaker 2: weakly and then trailed off, as though uncertain whether it
Speaker 2: was allowed to finish. What sort of timing problem, Elias asked.
Speaker 2: The conductor adjusted his gloves. We have run out of midnight,
Speaker 2: Elias blinked, run out. Yes, I didn't realize that was possible.
Speaker 2: It normally isn't, the conductor admitted. But tonight we appear
Speaker 2: to have used all of it. Elias considered this because
Speaker 2: he had discovered that considering things was better than immediately fainting.
Speaker 2: What does midnight do? It keeps us between, the conductor said, gently,
Speaker 2: between yesterday and tomorrow, between places that are finished and
Speaker 2: places that have not quite decided to begin, Between doors
Speaker 2: that are closing and doors that are thinking about opening.
Speaker 2: That sounds important, extremely and if you don't have it.
Speaker 2: The conductor glanced back at the engine, which gave a
Speaker 2: small apologetic shudder. Then we remain here around his silent platform,
Speaker 2: his unmoving moth, his frozen cat, and the paused stars overhead.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure my station is designed for that. No
Speaker 2: station is, the conductor said kindly. Elias stood very still
Speaker 2: for several seconds, while his mind did the careful work
Speaker 2: of lining up the thoughts the way he lined up boots.
Speaker 2: What powers the train moments, the conductor replied. Elias raised
Speaker 2: his eyebrows. Steam is more common. Steam is very straightforward,
Speaker 2: said the conductor. We are less, so what kind of moments?
Speaker 2: The conductor gestured vaguely at the air around them, waiting
Speaker 2: for kettles to boil, standing in doorways while forgetting while
Speaker 2: you went there looking out of windows when you should
Speaker 2: be doing something else, lingering after conversations, pauses, hesitations, the
Speaker 2: sort of seconds people misplace. Elias felt a slow, peculiar
Speaker 2: recognition settle over him. I keep those in a drawer,
Speaker 2: he said. The conductor brightened. Everyone does most just call
Speaker 2: it clutter. Elias turned and went inside. The stillness followed him,
Speaker 2: wrapping the ticket office in a strange, muffled hush. Papers
Speaker 2: hovered where they had been mid flutter. The clock above
Speaker 2: the window stared back at him accusingly. He unlocked the
Speaker 2: desk drawer he had not cleaned out in years and
Speaker 2: peered inside. It was full. There were old notes he
Speaker 2: had never thrown away because he was not sure whether
Speaker 2: they were finished with him, yet half completed lists, programs
Speaker 2: from concerts he had stayed to the end of, even
Speaker 2: though he had planned to leave early. A postcard he
Speaker 2: had bought but never sent, three different keys. He no
Speaker 2: longer remembered owning a tea bag he had forgotten in
Speaker 2: his pocket until it became more sentiment than beverage. Elias
Speaker 2: scooped the contents gently into a wooden tray and carried
Speaker 2: it back onto the platform. The conductor watched with professional interest.
Speaker 2: These are excellent, he murmured. Elias poured them into the
Speaker 2: open panel beneath the engine, half expecting sparks or smoke,
Speaker 2: or at least a polite light warning label. Instead, the
Speaker 2: train sighed, the hum deepened somewhere inside, gears shifted. The
Speaker 2: station clock twitched. The moth completed a loop around the
Speaker 2: lamp post and flew off. Slightly embarrassed, The cat put
Speaker 2: its raised paw down and yawned. Elias's pocket watch ticked
Speaker 2: forward twelve o four. The fields exhaled, stars resumed drifting,
Speaker 2: The engine glowed of richer blue. Passengers applauded quietly, which
Speaker 2: sounded more like rustling paper than clapping hands. The conductor
Speaker 2: beamed that should keep us going for several weeks. I
Speaker 2: have more drawers, Elias said, cautiously, we suspected. The train
Speaker 2: departed with a gentle whistle that sounded less mournful than grateful.
Speaker 2: From then on, Elias helped, not loudly, not officially, but thoroughly.
Speaker 2: He saved minutes the way other people saved string. He
Speaker 2: tucked spare pauses into envelopes. He began keeping a small
Speaker 2: tin labeled Later, which he filled with afternoons that had
Speaker 2: gone unused and thoughts that had wandered off half way
Speaker 2: through sentences. Each night, at twelve o three, he brought
Speaker 2: the tin on to the platform. Sometimes the conductor collected it.
Speaker 2: Sometimes a porter made of light did. Sometimes the woman
Speaker 2: with the snow waved at him and left a frost
Speaker 2: edged thank you note on the bench. The Midnight line
Speaker 2: kept running, passengers kept coming. A man returned with a
Speaker 2: suitcase now full of sunsets instead of echoes. A girl
Speaker 2: who had once carried a glowing jar stepped off with
Speaker 2: empty hands and a relieved smile. The Twins map eventually
Speaker 2: folded itself into a tidy rectangle and refused to open again,
Speaker 2: which they took as a sign of success, Elias began
Speaker 2: to receive post cards. None had addresses, all arrived anyway.
Speaker 2: They showed floating bridges, spiral cities, forests made of glass,
Speaker 2: seas that glowed in the dark. The messages were brief,
Speaker 2: made it thank you. Still raining sideways, he pinned them
Speaker 2: above his desk. No one in town noticed anything different,
Speaker 2: which suited him. Stations were meant to be places people
Speaker 2: passed through, not places that demanded explanations. Years went by
Speaker 2: in a gentle, ordinary way. The morning train still smelt
Speaker 2: of toast, the evening train still smelled of rain. The
Speaker 2: lamp posts still hummed, The midnight line still arrived. At
Speaker 2: twelve o three. Elias's hair went gray. The cat became
Speaker 2: a fixture. New porters came and went, none of them
Speaker 2: staying late enough to ask questions. And every night, beneath
Speaker 2: the yellow pool of light, Elias Thorn stood with his
Speaker 2: ledger tucked under one arm and his tin of spare
Speaker 2: moments under the other, ready to supply the thin necessary
Speaker 2: pause that kept a very unusual train moving through the
Speaker 2: narrow seam Between days. He liked that the world was
Speaker 2: larger than schedules. He liked that not everything fit in boxes.
Speaker 2: He liked that some journeys required waiting, and when the
Speaker 2: whistle drifted through the dark, soft and low and patient
Speaker 2: as breathing, Elias always smiled before checking his watch. Twelve
Speaker 2: o three a m.
Speaker 3: Right on time.
Speaker 2: A girl followed, cradling a jar that glowed faintly green
Speaker 2: and illuminated her face from below. Good evening, Elias said,
Speaker 2: because he had discovered that politeness was the only tool,
Speaker 2: was the only tool he owned that fit this situation.
Speaker 2: They nodded to him, smiling as though they were boarding
Speaker 2: a perfectly normal train to somewhere perfectly ordinary tickets please.
Speaker 2: They handed them over again. The paper shimmered, then settled again.
Speaker 2: They were stamped for midnight again. His hands felt oddly
Speaker 2: light when he gave them back. As the passengers boarded,
Speaker 2: Elias noticed more unusual luggage. A violin case that dripped
Speaker 2: sea water, a crate labeled only if singing, with no
Speaker 2: indication of what might be inside. A rolled carpet that
Speaker 2: occasionally tried to unroll itself. When the door slid shut
Speaker 2: and the train glided away once more, Elias stood watching
Speaker 2: until the last glimmer of light vanished into the bend
Speaker 2: of the tracks. He did not immediately go back inside. Instead,
Speaker 2: he remained beneath the lamp post, listening to the fields
Speaker 2: and the far away owls, letting the quiet rearrange itself
Speaker 2: around him. Back in his office, he opened the ledger
Speaker 2: and wrote twelve o three a m unscheduled arrival, same train,
Speaker 2: different passengers, snow suit case delayed shadow. He stared at
Speaker 2: the page for a long time before adding jar glowed
Speaker 2: underlined that one twice. On the third night, he brought
Speaker 2: a chair. On the fourth, he brought a thermos and
Speaker 2: a notebook separate from his official ledger, because some things
Speaker 2: felt too strange to share a book with freight schedules.
Speaker 2: On the fifth night, a ray cat appeared on the
Speaker 2: edge of the platform and sat down beside him, with
Speaker 2: the air of someone who had always intended to be there.
Speaker 2: They did not look at him. It watched the rails.
Speaker 2: You're waiting too, Elias murmured. The cat flicked one ear.
Speaker 2: At twelve o three. The train arrived, and the cat's
Speaker 2: tail made a thoughtful loop before going still. Passengers came
Speaker 2: and went in a steady, unhurried rhythm. Elias began to
Speaker 2: recognize some of them. The woman with the snow returned,
Speaker 2: this time carrying only a scarf that trailed frost behind her.
Speaker 2: The man with the delayed shadow nodded to him as
Speaker 2: though they were colleagues. The new traveler arrived with a
Speaker 2: suitcase full of autumn leaves that tumbled out and scuttled
Speaker 2: back inside on their own. Elias started asking careful questions.
Speaker 2: Long journey he ventured? One night, sometimes, said a man
Speaker 2: whose shoes were wet despite the clear sky, Where too,
Speaker 2: he asked? Another not far, replied a woman who smelled
Speaker 2: the libraries. One evening, he noticed that the map the
Speaker 2: twins carried had finally given up folding itself and now
Speaker 2: lay open across three seats, showing rivers that looped in
Speaker 2: impossible ways, and towns drawn in handwriting that looked like
Speaker 2: it belonged to several different people at once. By the
Speaker 2: seventh night, Elias no longer felt quite as though he
Speaker 2: were trespassed on his own platform. On the eighth night,
Speaker 2: he stepped inside the first carriage, again, just far enough
Speaker 2: to avoid the cold. No one stopped him. The rugs
Speaker 2: muffled his steps, the velvet seats gleamed softly. He wandered
Speaker 2: down the aisle, pretending to check for forgotten umbrellas while
Speaker 2: taking in every impossible object he could see. A tea
Speaker 2: service floated gently above one table, pouring itself into cups
Speaker 2: no one was currently holding. A pair of elderly men
Speaker 2: played chess with pieces that slowly changed shape when they
Speaker 2: were not being watched. Someone slept with their head against
Speaker 2: the window, and outside that window rolled a coastline Elias
Speaker 2: was certain did not belong anywhere near his town. A
Speaker 2: tall figure in a shimmering uniform approached, walking with the
Speaker 2: quiet authority of someone who never had to hurry. You're early,
Speaker 2: the conductor said, pleasantly, I work here, Elias replied, because
Speaker 2: this seemed to explain several things. Oh good, we like professionals.
Speaker 2: Elias hesitated, then gestured vaguely at everything. Where does this
Speaker 2: train go? The conductor smiled in a way that suggested
Speaker 2: maps were advisory rather than binding. Where it's needed, and
Speaker 2: where is that? The conductor tipped his hat tonight three
Speaker 2: places that no longer exist, two that have not started yet,
Speaker 2: and one that keeps changing its mind. Elias considered this,
Speaker 2: do you need a station master? We have one? Oh,
Speaker 2: but he's on holiday. The conductor gave him a conspiratorial
Speaker 2: nod and drifted away. Elias returned to the platform just
Speaker 2: before the doors closed, feeling as though he had leaned
Speaker 2: over the edge of something very deep and very polite.
Speaker 2: By the twelfth night, he was greeting passengers. By the
Speaker 2: fifteenth he was keeping a separate list of recurring ones.
Speaker 2: By the eighteenth he had stopped pretending the midnight line
Speaker 2: was a temporary inconvenience. It was part of his station.
Speaker 2: Now he was simply the only one who noticed. Then,
Speaker 2: on the twenty first night, the train arrived and did
Speaker 2: not leave. The engine hummed unevenly, the lights dimmed, the
Speaker 2: doors stayed open. The lamp post flickered. Elias checked the clock,
Speaker 2: twelve o three. It did not move. The wind paused.
Speaker 2: Half way through a sigh, the cat froze with one
Speaker 2: paw lifted. Elias swallowed. That seems new, he said. Into
Speaker 2: the stillness from the train stepped the conductor, hat in hand.
Speaker 2: We appear, he said, carefully, to have developed a timing problem.
Speaker 2: The stillness felt heavier than silence usually did. It pressed
Speaker 2: against Elias's ears and settled in his chest, as though
Speaker 2: the entire world had inhaled and forgotten how to let
Speaker 2: the breath go again, and had forgotten how to let
Speaker 2: the breath go again. The lamp post above him hummed
Speaker 2: once and then went quiet. The moth that had been
Speaker 2: circling its light hung motionless in the air, like a
Speaker 2: fleck of dust suspended in amber. Even the fields beyond
Speaker 2: the tracks appeared to have paused mid rustle, and the
Speaker 2: long grass frozen in the middle of whatever small conversation
Speaker 2: it had been having. And the long grass frozen in
Speaker 2: the middle of whatever small conversation it had been having.
Speaker 2: With the breeze, Elias glanced at his pocket watch, twelve
Speaker 2: o three a m. The secondhand did not move. He
Speaker 2: looked up at the station clock. Neither did that. From
Speaker 2: inside the train came a low, uncertain ticking, not rhythmic
Speaker 2: enough to be reassuring and not chaotic enough to be panic,
Speaker 2: but something in between, the sound a machine might make
Speaker 2: if it were trying to remember how it normally behaved.
Speaker 2: That seems inconvenient, Elias said, at last, because he had
Speaker 2: discovered over the past three weeks that stating the obvious
Speaker 2: was sometimes the only way to keep one's thoughts from
Speaker 2: galloping off in unhelpful directions. Quite, the conductor replied, stepping
Speaker 2: down onto the platform with a carefulness that suggested gravity
Speaker 2: itself was currently under review. Leaned out of windows. The
Speaker 2: woman who borrowed fog stared at the frozen fields with concern.
Speaker 2: The man whose shadow lagged behind him looked down and
Speaker 2: frowned when he realized his shadow had stopped altogether. Somewhere
Speaker 2: in the middle of the train, a kettle whistled weakly
Speaker 2: and then trailed off, as though uncertain whether it was
Speaker 2: allowed to finish. What sort of timing problem, Elias asked.
Speaker 2: The conductor adjusted his gloves. We have run out of midnight,
Speaker 2: Elias blinked, run out. Yes, I didn't realize that was possible.
Speaker 2: It normally isn't, the conductor admitted. But tonight we appear
Speaker 2: to have used all of it. Elias considered this because
Speaker 2: he had discovered that considering things was better than immediately fainting.
Speaker 2: What does midnight do? It keeps us between, the conductor said, gently,
Speaker 2: between yesterday and tomorrow, between places that are finished and
Speaker 2: places that have not quite decided to begin, Between doors
Speaker 2: that are closing and doors that are thinking about opening.
Speaker 2: That sounds important, extremely and if you don't have it.
Speaker 2: The conductor glanced back at the engine, which gave a
Speaker 2: small apologetic shudder, then we remain here. Elias looked around
Speaker 2: his silent platform, his unmoving moth, his frozen cat, and
Speaker 2: the paused stars overhead. I'm not sure my station is
Speaker 2: designed for that. No station is, the conductor said kindly.
Speaker 2: Elias stood very still for several seconds while his mind
Speaker 2: did the careful work of lining up the thoughts the
Speaker 2: way he lined up boots. What powers the train moments,
Speaker 2: the conductor replied. Elias raised his eyebrows. Steam is more common.
Speaker 2: Steam is very straightforward, said the conductor. We are less,
Speaker 2: so what kind of moments? The conductor gestured vaguely at
Speaker 2: the air around them, waiting for kettles to boil. Standing
Speaker 2: in doorways while forgetting why you went there looking out
Speaker 2: of windows when you should be doing something else. Lingering
Speaker 2: after conversations, pauses, hesitations, the sort of seconds people misplaced,
Speaker 2: Elias felt a slow, peculiar recognition settle over him. I
Speaker 2: keep those in a drawer, he said. The conductor brightened.
Speaker 2: Everyone does most just call it clutter. Elias turned and
Speaker 2: went inside. The stillness followed him, wrapping the ticket office
Speaker 2: in a strange muffled hush. Papers hovered where they had
Speaker 2: been mid flutter. The clock above the window stared back
Speaker 2: at him accusingly. He unlocked the desk doorer he had
Speaker 2: not cleaned out in years, and peered inside. It was full.
Speaker 2: There were old notes he had never thrown away because
Speaker 2: he was not sure whether they were finished with him yet,
Speaker 2: half completed lists, programs from concerts he had stayed to
Speaker 2: the end of, even though he had planned to leave early.
Speaker 2: A postcard he had bought but never sent, three different
Speaker 2: keys he no longer remembered owning a tea bag he
Speaker 2: had forgotten in his pocket until it became more sentiment
Speaker 2: than beverage. Elias scooped the contents gently into a wooden
Speaker 2: tray and carried it back onto the platform. The conductor
Speaker 2: watched with professional interest. These are excellent, he murmured. Elias
Speaker 2: poured them into the open panel beneath the engine, half
Speaker 2: expecting sparks or smoke, or at least a polite warning label. Instead,
Speaker 2: the train sighed, the hum deepened inside, gears shifted, the
Speaker 2: station clock twitched. The moth completed a loop around the
Speaker 2: lamp post and flew off, slightly embarrassed. The cat put
Speaker 2: its raised paw down and yawned. Elias's pocket watch ticked
Speaker 2: forward twelve o four. The fields exhaled, stars resumed drifting.
Speaker 2: The engine glowed of richer blue. Passengers applauded quietly, which
Speaker 2: sounded more like rustling paper than clapping hands. The conductor beamed,
Speaker 2: that should keep us going for several weeks. I have
Speaker 2: more drawers, Elias said, cautiously. We suspected. The train departed
Speaker 2: with a gentle whistle that sounded less mournful than grateful.
Speaker 2: From then on, Elias helped, not loudly, not officially, but thoroughly.
Speaker 2: He saved minutes the way other people saved string. He
Speaker 2: tucked spare pauses into envelopes. He began keeping a small tin,
Speaker 2: labeled Later, which he filled with afternoons that had gone
Speaker 2: unused and thoughts that had wandered off halfway through sentences.
Speaker 2: Each night, at twelve o three, he brought the tin
Speaker 2: onto the platform. Sometimes the conductor collected it. Sometimes a
Speaker 2: porter made of light did. Sometimes the woman with the
Speaker 2: snow waved at him and left a frost edged thank
Speaker 2: you note on the bench. The midnight line kept running,
Speaker 2: pass kept coming. A man returned with a suitcase, now
Speaker 2: full of sunsets instead of echoes. A girl who had
Speaker 2: once carried a glowing jar stepped off with empty hands
Speaker 2: and a relieved smile. The Twins map eventually folded itself
Speaker 2: into a tidy rectangle and refused to open again, which
Speaker 2: they took as a sign of success. Elias began to
Speaker 2: receive postcards. None had addresses, All arrived anyway. They showed
Speaker 2: floating bridges, spiral cities, forests made of glass, seas that
Speaker 2: glowed in the dark. The messages were brief, made it
Speaker 2: thank you, Still raining sideways, he pinned them above his desk.
Speaker 2: No one in town noticed anything different, which suited him.
Speaker 2: Stations were meant to be places people passed through, not
Speaker 2: places that demanded explanations. Years went by in a gentle,
Speaker 2: ordinary way. The morning train still smelled of toast, the
Speaker 2: evening train still smelled of rain. The lamp posts still hummed,
Speaker 2: the midnight line still arrived. At twelve o three, Elias's
Speaker 2: hair went gray. The cat became a fixture. New porters
Speaker 2: came and went, none of them staying late enough to
Speaker 2: ask questions, and every night. Beneath the yellow pool of light,
Speaker 2: Elias Thorn stood with his ledger tucked under one arm
Speaker 2: and his tin of spare moments under the other, ready
Speaker 2: to supply the thin necessary pause that kept a very
Speaker 2: unusual train moving through the narrow seam between days. He
Speaker 2: liked that the world was larger than schedules. He liked
Speaker 2: that not everything fit in boxes. He liked that some
Speaker 2: journeys required waiting. And when the whistle drifted through the dark,
Speaker 2: soft and low and patient as breathing, Elias always smiled
Speaker 2: before checking his watch. Twelve o three a m.
Speaker 3: Right on time, schoo
Speaker 1: Sixt