as she watches the sun

I could hear my breaths and footsteps as I rushed downstairs. My shadow followed anxiously as if it was a race. Raindrops tainted the unending stairs, and found their ways into my skin. Behind me, the echoes quietly preyed.

I have to go faster.

I reached the end of the stairs. The overhead lights overexposed the train station like a cheap film camera - the kind of white light that suffocates, that hurts the glaring witnesses, that only appears on the sky before it rains. Yet, the people in the hallway flared against the whiteness, as everyone was dressed in black. The crowd drifted across the floor in restless patterns, their shadows weaving frantic dances on the stained ground. The echoes ceased chasing my footsteps at that point, seeking every corner of the station to ridicule the people trespassing.

I have to go faster. I have to run, or else I would miss the train. Sorry. I am sorry. I am so sorry for your loss. The words fall from my mouth as I collide with the frantic crowd, whispers so faint they dissolve before reaching anyone’s ears.

Several trains with single compartments were waiting on the platform. Underneath a gloating sign, I board the train in front of me. Vapors clung to the windows, undisturbed by my entrance; I tiptoed. The driver did not turn his head around. Outside, my shadow lingered and could not seem to track where I went, so it turned around and disappeared back into the crowd.

As the doors seal shut, I turned away from the window and sank into my seat beside the fogged glass. Everything halted— sound, anxiety, people, time. It is as if I have held onto the minute hand of an invisible clock. Pause, just a moment. Pause for me, please.

The train began to move, and the earth answered with a subtle tremor. Stones along the rails stirred awake beneath the iron wheels, tumbling against one another, striking in sequence, like a chain of muted bells. Their ripples flow outward in delicate waves, urging the resting birds to scatter into the air. I leaned my head on the windowsill, and for a breathless stretch, nothing existed but the void, swallowing sound and color alike. I did not know where this train was leading, only that I was where I needed to be, and I would know once we arrived. So I sat still.

The carriage felt motionless, while the landscape—fields, dikes, furrows—seemed to be sliding backward slowly. Pale scenes dissolved and reformed as we traveled through one tunnel after the other.

Emerging from the longest tunnel, blackness vanished. Colors erupted in front of my eyes: pink, white, orange, blue. Thousands of magnolias bloomed upon sycamores. A lake spilled upward into the sky’s embrace. A moon appeared, haloed by its own shadow. I pressed my palm to the glass, handprint merging with the vapor. It was not our moon—not the one on our earth. Even the world’s breath stilled; not a single flower stirred. I held my breath with them.

And then, without a notice, the colors and seasons shifted. The blossoms fell behind us, the stillness loosened its grip, and we began to ride along the edge of an abyss. A fading sun scattered itself across snowy ridges, across the train, across my fingertips, retrieving its last warmth before vanishing.

An arch bridge emerges, and now I know. It is the place. I jump off the train, without saying farewell - if only I knew it was the last time, if only I knew that she could not wait. The one-way train rides on and vaporizes. Not even if she wanted to stay with us. Here.

Men, women, dogs, and a bronze bell are sitting on the long bench. Leaning towards the sunset, no one turns around. Only the bell murmurs, there’s no rush, here. Take it in, this second and the next. The last burst of sunset absorbs the platform as bright as the head light of the single-compartment train —all perceptions slowly melt in the warmth. Everyone. Everywhere. Everything. I step closer to the platform, facing the sinking sun.

Somehow, I still recognize the silhouette of my grandmother’s back. After all these years.

It reminds me of the mountain ridge covered in snow.

I watch her, as she watches the sun.