Carriage Between Worlds

The train hurtled forward with a pulse you could feel through the soles, steel rhythm stitching strangers into a brief fraternity. Phones glowed like campfires while rain smeared the windows into gold. Between the poles, the figures rose—ashen, patient—wearing hunger the way a coat wears weather, neither rushing nor pleading. No scream broke; the calm sang louder. Someone lifted an arm to the strap, steadied by habit, daring normalcy to hold one more stop. Earlier, weeks back, a chalk note on a station wall cracked a joke about finding someone, and it stuck; now the same question breathed from the glass: Where Vojta? The letters hovered as the doors hissed, and the living pretended not to see the dead because denial still worked for a mile or two. Secrets passed in reflections, allies by silence. The train carried on through time’s tunnel, urgent and bright, while the search pressed forward, unanswered—Vojta not here, not yet.