The old sign once listed a dozen towns along the river. Tonight, the place names have become things people say when they are not ready: After the summer. When work is quieter. As soon as I know what to say. You rub the glass with your sleeve. Beneath the timetable, someone has written a warning in the careful capitals of a person who expects to be ignored. To find your way home, ask for tomorrow. Do not ask for yesterday. The railway does not provide that service, however convincing the advertisements may appear. There is more, in smaller writing. No passenger owes the railway their future. Staff must accept a spoken destination. Breakfast is included. You read the first sentence twice. The words are reassuring in the way a life belt is reassuring: they suggest somebody has needed one before. A small round object is caught in the ivy below the sign. It is a silver button shaped like the moon, with a crescent scratched into its back. You put it in your pocket. Something about it feels warm, although the night is cold. The station bell gives a single, incomplete note. On the platform clock, the second hand reaches eleven and jumps backward to twelve. Quill has come down from the train. He straightens a corner of the sign which is not crooked. Those are the original regulations. People tend to read the destinations and overlook the small print. You would be amazed how much trouble that causes. You ask who wrote the warning. A passenger who found the return journey more difficult than expected. She became our engineer. Her handwriting has improved very little. The fox glances at your closed hand. He sees the button, but does not ask for it. Instead, he holds the carriage door open with an expression of elaborate professional innocence. You board before the clock can change its mind again.
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.