Railroad

The road trailed away into the distance, winding this way and that until it swerved to the left, disappearing from vision altogether. To one side lay a muddy scrap of forest, and to the other a huge field that wore a cloak of parched, uneven grass. She had told me not to expect an idyllic countryside scene, but somehow it was proving difficult to reconcile this rundown patch of land with the image my mind had put together.

That evening the air was thick with heat, a sultry blanket reverberating with the drone of countryside insects and wrapping itself tightly around every living creature it could find. The colours of the sky had bled into one another to form a messy canvas awash with milky yellows and soft reds as we drew closer and closer to nightfall. Even our hair was damp with perspiration. Stopping to take a breath and wipe the thin film of sweat from my forehead, I turned my head to watch her. Her eyes were narrower than usual, and from the rigid way in which she was holding herself, I could see she was tense.

"This is the place," she said simply. I tried to nod, and wordlessly we ventured off the road and into the expanse of weeds and heaps of scrap metal. In the distance, a strip of railway track cut the field in half, stretching out on its bed of sun-baked gravel to the left and the right as far as the eye could see. Closer to us sat a row of fat oil storage tanks and above our heads telephone wires sagged listlessly from their posts. This rundown field occupied by scrap metal and train tracks was not the place that had featured in so many of her anecdotes - no, not at all. Perhaps age had not treated it kindly, or perhaps her childhood eyes had molded beauty out of lackluster surroundings and poisoned her memories of time spent here. I would never know.

She exhaled wearily and began to pick her way through the tufts of dry grass that yellowed and drooped as if they were elderly paper. I gave my watch a momentary glance, and when my eyes rose again she was crouching close to the railway tracks with her hands spread over the strips of metal.

"It's late," I called out. "We'll have to go."

My words hovered feebly in the humid air, and did not reach her at all. I kept watching as one of her hands disappeared into a tuft of grass next to the heap of gravel and emerged clasping a shabby dandelion. Slowly, she raised the little weed to her lips and blew away its head of seeds with a single breath. There was no breeze to carry them off, and they sank vertically through the air, settling at her feet.

With a glance at the darker stains of night spreading over the sky, I followed her over to the tracks, where she was still crouching with her shadow stretching out behind her. No sooner had I opened my mouth than she reached for my wrist and pressed my palm flat against one of the metal rails. The soft tremors that passed through it sent a low hum snaking through the air and made the skin on my hands tingle.

We spent one silent minute next to the tracks, squatting with our hands on the restless strips of metal. A host of dingy night-time tones crept over the sky which swept away the last vestiges of the afternoon and left us drenched in quiet twilight.

When the freight train finally made its entrance, it did so gradually. Coming ever closer as its dismal wail drowned out the chirping of the insects, it had one small headlight with which it punctured the dusk and spilled a harsh brightness over the track ahead. The tremors dominating the metal worsened until the tracks felt as if they were convulsing under our hands. We remained still until the headlight of the train was close enough to cut into our eyes and force us to squint. I lost my balance and stumbled backwards into the rough weeds and crumbling dirt, watching as the huge thing rumbled by us in a whirl of noise. It took its time in passing, and the trail of ugly cars that clattered by seemed to go on and on without any sign of finishing.

I scrambled to my feet the instant it was a safe distance from us, and glanced down at my feet, which were shrouded in a fine coating of dry dirt. She too had managed to stand and was scraping strands of sweat-damp hair from her face while she scrutinized the receding train.

There was no wistful gaze and no expression of longing painted over her features as it was eventually swallowed by the distance and the clattering noise faded away. She kicked at a few chunks of gravel, smiled faintly at the tracks narrowing into the horizon, and turned to look at me.

"Those trains aren't the same anymore," came her clear voice a second later. "That's all."

Giving her a somnolent nod, I sighed and began to trudge back the way we had come. The only sound that permeated the heavy dusk was the rustling of my battered sandals as they pushed through the expanse of withered weeds.