thursby

a stop where the train always stops at exactly four minutes past the hour, no matter what hour, because of a long arrangement with a locked siding that nobody quite remembers. the shelter is open on three sides and the wind has its run of it; in winter, the bench is the warmest thing here, because someone has been sitting on it.

thursby village is on a low ridge ten minutes off, named for a saint nobody can describe in any detail. there is a wool mill that closed in 1973 and an iron bridge nobody is allowed to use. the train stops six times a day, and four of those times the only passenger is the same farmhand going up and down the line with milk churns.

the stationmaster is young — the youngest on the line — and took the job because his grandfather had it. he keeps the lamp polished and his uniform unironed and writes letters at the ticket window when no train is due. nobody knows who he writes to.

field note: the iron bridge can be seen from the platform on clear days. it is rust, and perfect, and locked at both ends.