silvergrove

a wood of birches grown right up to the track. the platform is short, paved in stone the colour of bone, and at dusk the trunks shift colour with the lamp — silver, then grey, then something the eye gives up on. the village proper is at the far side of the wood; you walk through to reach it.

three trains a day. the timetable is printed on glazed card and pinned beside the sign, and it has been updated four times this century, each in the same hand. silvergrove has a school, a smithy that does not smith, and seven names of which two are shared by more than one family.

the stationmaster lives outside the village in a hut beside the line, with a stove and a dog and a small radio that picks up only one station. she sweeps the platform every other day, birch leaves mostly, and lets the rest collect.

field note: in mist, the trees seem to walk forward and the platform to retreat. the walker claims this; the traveller claims it is the other way around.