Whispers Over Train Tracks

The First Test

Railroad tracks leading out of town. She follows them, not understanding why at first, but she is compelled to. Whether from shear curiosity or misguided intent she does not know, though at present the thought as to why she has left home in these late hours to explore a destination of which she knows nothing of is not troubling in the slightest to her; so on she walks.

There is a whisper in the air, though she is unsure if it is only a trick of the wind meant to guide her further toward the unknown. She plays these thoughts over in her mind. She plays them and she gives them meaning and rhythm, and then she begins to sing to them, a melody of promise to ensure her safe return.

Each step she takes, one after the other, is a beat in her song, a pattern she adds to her adventure. They give life to her formulating verses as the words simply roll from her tongue into the sweet, spring air around her. They echo in the trees, whose branches twist in the cool breeze, a breeze that brushes the soft locks of hair off her shoulders. Her shoulders and small, sleek arms glow as ivory under the ashen light of the crescent moon. The vibrant, pale rays of the night's glistening heart dance to her song, as do the dark shadows shaping all around her through the branches of swaying trees and the loose tangles of her hair in the wind. Pebbles and stone part beneath her feat, her flat shoes brush against the wood and steel of the rails, and every so often she stops to unhook an unraveling string of the seam of her dress from a splinter in the tracks. Distant critters of the night chatter in verse, and then her body turns to a path leading into the darkness of parted trees.

She stops.

Another voice catches her ear. It is shadowed by a partner, distant and dark, but crystal clear. "Come," they say, echoing from the path ahead. She makes no sudden attempt to obey. The music of the night has died; she can no longer hear her song. She is frightened, yet curious. She waits for the voice to speak again. She waits for a long time, the cold wind now a chilled burden on her skin. Her cheeks flush in comparison to the lonely red roses at her feet, suddenly lying there as if an audience had tossed them, a token of appreciation she is unaware she deserves, and she shivers as the shadowed words approach once more.

"Come. Celebrate the times. There is more to be done." In a darker tone, only the shadow speaks, "Much, Much more."

She shivers again, light bumps begin to coat her skin, and she asks herself out of impetuous concern why she has gone into the night wearing only a summer's dress; plain (and horridly so) a dark green color matching almost ingeniously, if not unconsciously, the shade of the wood that she knows she will eventually find herself wondering about in as many seconds as steps that have carried her here. Her eyes settle on the bouquet of roses at the edge of the tracks, inches from her feet.

How beautiful, she thinks to herself, admiring the faint glow of their pedals under the light of the moon. She wishes to hold them, to smell their welcoming fragrance up close and keep them with her, closely to her, as if they would grant her safe passage to wherever her heart is leading her, but she remains uncertain. She stares and admires them. That is all she does. Not even pity for fear of them dying in the cold can compel her to lower a hand over their beauty, for a dark feeling washes over her when she looks at them. When she decides this, she feels she can move again (it had not occurred to her that she was not able to do so within the entire time after discovering the path leading away from the railroad, that she simply had the desire to hold still was in fact not the case) and so she steps over the roses, off the train track  and into the parting of trees.

Into the darkness.

"There is much to be done," the softer voice echoes. Its partner has gone, and she hears it no longer. She does not know it, but she has passed the first test.