Alice and the Station Between Moments
Chapter One: The Day That Wouldn’t Decide
Alice had learned to tell when a day was uncertain.
It did not announce itself. It behaved perfectly at first, which was always suspicious.
This particular morning looked quite ordinary until Alice noticed that her shadow hesitated before following her. It did not lag behind—shadows were allowed to do that—but paused, as if considering whether it agreed with the direction.
“Don’t be difficult,” Alice told it.
The shadow complied, which worried her more than disobedience would have.
She walked on.
The road was narrow and sensible and led somewhere it had always led before. Birds were doing bird-things. A fence stood where fences belonged. Nothing shimmered, flickered, or attempted conversation.
And yet—
Alice felt the weight.
Not a physical weight. A temporal one. The sort you feel when something has been left unfinished and has begun, out of politeness, to wait for you.
She stopped by a hedge.
The hedge leaned slightly forward, then corrected itself.
Alice smiled.
“Ah,” she said softly. “You’ve started remembering.”
A man coming the other way paused.
“Pardon?” he said.
Alice turned. He looked ordinary, which meant he was probably about to experience something that wasn’t.
“The hedge,” she explained. “It’s thinking about where it ends.”
The man glanced at the hedge. It was, at that moment, doing an excellent impression of a hedge.
“I don’t see anything wrong with it,” he said.
“No,” Alice agreed. “You wouldn’t.”
She stepped aside to let him pass. As he did, he frowned.
“Have we met before?” he asked.
Alice considered this carefully.
“Not yet,” she said. “But you’re remembering tomorrow by accident.”
The man laughed, because that is what people do when they have been told the truth too early.
He walked on.
Two steps later, he stopped, turned, and called back, “I meant to apologise—”
Alice was already moving again.
The road curved. The day shifted its weight.
She felt it then, clearly and unmistakably:
Something had happened twice.
That was the rule.
Not written. Never written. But true all the same.
When a thing happened twice, it became difficult to keep in one place.
Alice touched the hedge as she passed.
“Don’t worry,” she murmured. “It’s not starting here.”
The hedge rustled, relieved.
Further along the road, the day finally made up its mind and became afternoon.
Alice walked on, carrying nothing but a small certainty and a larger patience.
Somewhere behind her, a kettle boiled too soon.
Somewhere ahead of her, a choice waited—lighter now, because it had been noticed.
And somewhere, not very far away at all, a village that had once refused to look away settled back into being exactly what it was:
a place where things were allowed to happen.
Alice did not look back.
She never needed to.
Chapter Two: The Station That Didn’t Agree to Be a Station
Alice reached the place at the hour when evening pretends to be gentle and then suddenly isn’t.
From a distance it looked like a small rural station—one platform, one bench, one lamppost, one sign that had once had a name. But as she drew closer, the sign altered its lettering with the nervousness of a person trying to remember a lie.
It said:
BALLYK—
then
BALL—
then
PLEASE WAIT
then
LATER
The lamppost blinked in a rhythm that was not quite regular, as if counting a number it had forgotten halfway through.
Alice stopped at the edge of the platform and looked down the track.
The track went in both directions and also, slightly, in a third direction that wasn’t there.
The air smelled faintly of coal smoke and rain and something that had been delayed too long and was now beginning to spoil.
A man in a uniform stood at the far end of the platform. Not a busy uniform—no badges, no authority—just a cap and a coat as if he had been appointed to a job that no longer existed but felt rude to abandon.
He was staring down the line with the expression of someone who had seen the future arrive early and had not been properly introduced.
Alice walked towards him.
“Excuse me,” she said.
He didn’t startle, which meant he had already practiced being startled and had given up. Instead he turned slowly, as if movement had to be negotiated with the air.
“You’re here,” he said.
“Usually I am,” Alice replied.
He nodded. “That explains it.”
“What explains what?”
“The waiting,” he said, and said it like a confession.
Alice looked around. The bench on the platform was occupied by nobody. The lamppost lit the emptiness with unnecessary devotion. A timetable hung in a glass case and was full of times that had been crossed out and re-written in pencil, as though the station were trying to remember its own intentions.
A train, Alice thought, did not require belief to arrive. It required rails.
But here the rails looked… uncertain.
They gleamed like a thought.
Alice turned back to the man. “What’s your name?”
He hesitated, as if his name was not fully his.
“Mr Sweeney,” he said. “At least, I was yesterday.”
“Are you not today?”
Mr Sweeney glanced at his hands, then at the station, then at the sky. “Today is… undecided.”
Alice smiled. “Yes. I’ve met days like that.”
Mr Sweeney’s eyes sharpened. “Then you know what this is.”
“I have an idea,” said Alice. “But I’d like to see what it thinks it’s doing before I interfere.”
“Interfere?” Mr Sweeney repeated, appalled. “We don’t interfere. We wait.”
“That,” Alice said mildly, “is a kind of interference all by itself.”
Mr Sweeney did not understand this but he felt it was probably true and therefore dangerous.
Behind them, the sign flickered again and briefly read:
ARRIVING: YESTERDAY
DEPARTING: TOMORROW
Alice sighed.
“Ah,” she said. “It’s one of those places.”
Mr Sweeney swallowed. “One of what?”
“One of the in-between places,” Alice replied. “A place that has become too good at waiting. So good that Time has started leaving parcels here.”
“Parcels?”
Alice pointed.
Mr Sweeney followed her finger and saw what he had been refusing to see: a small pile beside the bench. Not luggage. Not boxes. Not anything you’d label politely.
They were objects that didn’t belong together—an umbrella with a broken handle, a child’s shoe, a ribbon, a cracked mirror, a neatly folded letter that looked far too new for the dust that clung to it.
Mr Sweeney’s voice came out thin. “Those weren’t there an hour ago.”
“They probably were,” Alice said. “Just not for you.”
She walked to the pile and knelt.
The letter sat on top, as if requesting attention.
Alice did not touch it.
She had learned, in a village that noticed, that you do not touch a thing that has arrived early unless you’re willing to accept the rest of it.
Instead she examined the mirror.
It was a small pocket mirror with a silver rim. It showed her face and also, faintly behind her shoulder, a blur of someone else—someone standing where the platform railing was, except there was no one there.
Alice held her own gaze in the glass.
“You’ve started doubling,” she murmured.
Mr Sweeney stepped closer. “Is that… me?”
“No,” Alice said. “It’s a version of someone who’s been waiting here too long.”
Mr Sweeney didn’t like that. He didn’t like it at all.
“Listen,” he said tightly, “we’re not supposed to have versions. We’re supposed to have one of everything. One platform. One day. One train.”
Alice looked up at him.
“That’s an excellent rule,” she said. “Shame it isn’t being obeyed.”
The lamppost flickered. The light dimmed, then strengthened, then dimmed again—like a heartbeat trying to decide whether it wanted to be brave.
Mr Sweeney leaned toward Alice, lowering his voice though there was no one to overhear.
“It started a week ago,” he said. “Maybe longer. It’s hard to say. The first thing was the timetable. It… changed. Not the printed times—those are lies anyway—but the little pencil notes the old porter used to make.”
“What did the notes say?” Alice asked.
Mr Sweeney swallowed.
“They said: IF IT HAPPENS TWICE, IT WON’T STAY PUT.”
Alice’s expression shifted. Not surprise. Recognition.
“That’s a Ballykillduff rule,” she said.
Mr Sweeney stiffened. “I’ve never been to Ballykillduff.”
“Not physically,” Alice agreed. “But the rule has.”
Mr Sweeney stared at her as if she were blaming him for weather.
“You mean it’s spreading again?”
Alice stood. She brushed dust from her knees.
“No,” she said gently. “That’s the wrong idea. Spreading makes it sound like disease.”
“What is it then?”
Alice turned and looked down the tracks. The tracks shimmered again, and for a second she saw something coming. Not a train exactly.
More the idea of one.
“Somewhere,” Alice said, “someone did something twice.”
Mr Sweeney frowned. “People do that all the time. They forget. They repeat themselves.”
Alice nodded. “Yes. And most of the time it stays small. But when it’s an important thing—an apology not said, a decision avoided, a goodbye postponed—then it becomes heavy.”
Mr Sweeney’s mouth tightened.
“I don’t understand,” he said, though his face suggested he did.
Alice spoke quietly, like one does near sleeping animals or delicate truths.
“When a thing is left unfinished,” she said, “it doesn’t simply vanish. Time keeps it. And when Time keeps too much, it looks for somewhere to put it.”
“And it chose here?” Mr Sweeney asked, offended on behalf of the station.
Alice tilted her head. “Did the station choose to wait?”
Mr Sweeney opened his mouth, then shut it again.
“It’s a station,” he said, as if that answered the question.
Alice smiled slightly. “Exactly.”
She stepped toward the glass timetable case. The timetable was old, the paper yellowed. The printed ink had faded. The pencil notes were clear and fresh, as though written five minutes ago.
In the margin, beneath the latest scribbles, someone had added a new line:
DO NOT OPEN THE LETTER.
IT IS NOT FINISHED.
Alice leaned closer.
“And of course,” she said, “someone had to write that.”
Mr Sweeney’s voice trembled. “I didn’t.”
“I’m sure you didn’t,” Alice said.
The lamppost flared.
The sign flickered again and read, very briefly:
NOW ARRIVING: A CONVERSATION YOU AVOIDED
A low sound came from the tracks.
Not a whistle.
Not a rumble.
A sigh, like metal remembering sadness.
Mr Sweeney grabbed Alice’s sleeve.
“It’s coming,” he whispered.
Alice did not pull away.
“Yes,” she said. “And if we let it arrive without understanding what it wants, it will unload itself here and the station will become… sticky.”
“Sticky?”
Alice nodded solemnly.
“You don’t want an in-between place that becomes sticky,” she said. “Things get trapped.”
Mr Sweeney’s eyes widened. “People?”
“People,” Alice confirmed.
The sound grew louder. The rails shimmered more strongly. For a second, the air ahead of them thickened and a shape began to form—long, dark, old-fashioned—like a train emerging from an old photograph.
But it did not come from either direction.
It came from the third direction that wasn’t there.
Alice took a slow breath.
“Mr Sweeney,” she said.
“Yes?”
“Tell me,” Alice said, “who’s been waiting for someone who never came?”
Mr Sweeney went pale.
His mouth worked soundlessly.
Then, very quietly, he said, “Me.”
The train-idea drew nearer. The platform trembled faintly, as if bracing.
Alice’s voice softened.
“And who,” she asked, “did you forgive without telling them?”
Mr Sweeney’s eyes filled with the kind of tears that aren’t quite tears yet—only pressure.
“I didn’t forgive,” he whispered. “I just… stopped being angry because I got tired.”
Alice nodded as if that was exactly what she expected.
“Then,” she said, “the conversation is still unfinished.”
The train-idea reached the station edge.
It did not stop.
It hovered, uncertain, as though waiting for permission to become real.
Alice stepped forward and did something very strange, even for her.
She raised her hand, palm outward, not like a command, but like a greeting.
“Hello,” she said to the not-train.
The not-train shuddered.
A door appeared in its side, where no door had been.
It opened with a quiet click.
Inside was darkness—except for a single, neatly lit seat.
On the seat sat the folded letter.
Mr Sweeney inhaled sharply.
“It’s mine,” he said, horrified. “I wrote that.”
Alice didn’t look at him. She kept her eyes on the open door.
“Did you send it?” she asked.
Mr Sweeney’s voice broke. “No.”
“Did you mean to?”
“Yes.”
“Did you mean to for a long time?”
Mr Sweeney nodded.
The not-train waited with saintly patience.
Alice spoke softly, as if speaking too loudly might wake the wrong day.
“If you don’t finish it,” she said, “it will keep arriving.”
Mr Sweeney stared at the letter as though it were a small animal that might bite.
“And if I do finish it?” he asked.
Alice’s expression was calm, but her eyes were sharp.
“Then this place,” she said, “can go back to being empty in the correct way.”
Mr Sweeney took one step toward the door, then stopped.
“I can’t,” he whispered.
Alice turned to him.
“You can,” she said. “You just can’t do it while pretending you’re only waiting.”
Mr Sweeney’s shoulders sagged. He looked suddenly older.
“Who would I even send it to?” he asked. “He’s gone. Years gone.”
Alice nodded once.
“That’s why it’s heavy,” she said. “Unfinished things don’t care about practicalities.”
Mr Sweeney let out a shaky breath.
The not-train made a small sound. Almost impatient.
Almost… hungry.
Alice stepped closer to the door.
“Then we do it properly,” she said. “We finish it where it began.”
Mr Sweeney stared. “Here?”
Alice shook her head.
“No,” she said. “In the place you’ve been avoiding in your head.”
Mr Sweeney’s face crumpled.
“You can’t go there,” he whispered.
Alice smiled faintly.
“In-between places go everywhere,” she said. “That’s their worst habit.”
She glanced at the open doorway again and added, almost to herself:
“And the best.”
The lamppost flickered once, as if bracing for a story.
The sign blinked and held steady on new words:
NEXT STOP: THE MOMENT YOU SKIPPED
Alice stepped onto the not-train, just one foot inside the threshold.
She looked back at Mr Sweeney.
“Are you coming,” she asked, “or are you going to keep waiting until the world learns your name as a rule?”
Mr Sweeney stared at her, startled by the choice.
Then—very slowly—he stepped forward.
He boarded.
The door closed.
The not-train sighed, relieved.
And the station, empty again for one breath, felt lighter, as though something had finally agreed to move on.
Chapter Three: The Moment That Had Been Avoided
The not-train did not move.
That was the first thing Alice noticed.
It had all the proper sensations of travel — the low vibration beneath the feet, the faint hum of something deciding where to go — yet the station outside the window did not recede. Instead, it blurred, as though embarrassed to be seen doing nothing.
Mr Sweeney gripped the back of the seat in front of him.
“Is it broken?” he asked.
“No,” Alice replied. “It’s being careful.”
The interior of the carriage was smaller than it should have been and larger than it had any right to be. It smelled faintly of old paper, cold metal, and the sort of aftershave people wore when they were trying to appear composed. There were no other passengers, which was significant.
In between places rarely shared well.
The door at the far end of the carriage had no handle. Instead, it bore a neatly painted sign:
THIS WILL ONLY WORK IF YOU MEAN IT.
Mr Sweeney read it twice.
“I don’t like signs that judge,” he muttered.
Alice nodded. “Neither do I. But they’re usually correct.”
The not-train gave a small, decisive shudder.
The station vanished — not backwards, not sideways, but inward, folding up like a letter finally put back into its envelope. Outside the windows there was now only a pale, colourless space, like the inside of a thought that had not finished forming.
Mr Sweeney swallowed.
“Where are we?”
Alice tilted her head. “Inside the gap.”
“The gap between what?”
“Between what you did,” Alice said gently, “and what you meant to do.”
The carriage lights dimmed, then steadied. The door at the far end opened without being touched.
Beyond it was not another carriage.
It was a room.
The room was perfectly ordinary.
That, Alice knew at once, was the danger.
It was a small sitting room, furnished plainly but with care. A table. Two chairs. A sideboard. A window with curtains drawn halfway, as though someone had been interrupted while deciding whether to open them further.
The air felt thick, like a held breath.
Mr Sweeney stopped dead in the doorway.
“No,” he said at once. “No, this isn’t—”
Alice stepped past him.
“Yes,” she said quietly. “It is.”
The room was not a memory.
That was important.
Memories blur at the edges. They soften. They forgive.
This room was precise.
The placement of objects was exact. The angle of the chair legs. The slight scuff on the floor where something heavy had once been dragged and then put back, apologetically.
On the table lay the folded letter.
Mr Sweeney made a sound that was not quite a word.
“I never sent it,” he said, as if the room were accusing him.
The room did not answer.
Rooms like this did not accuse. They waited.
Alice turned to him.
“This is the moment you skipped,” she said. “It didn’t vanish. It just… went unfinished.”
Mr Sweeney shook his head.
“I couldn’t,” he said. “It wasn’t the right time.”
Alice sat down in one of the chairs. It creaked in recognition.
“Was there ever a right time?” she asked.
Mr Sweeney opened his mouth, then closed it again. He rubbed his hands together, a habit that had clearly been practiced over many years.
“I thought,” he said slowly, “that if I waited long enough, it would stop needing to be said.”
Alice watched him carefully.
“And did it?”
He looked at the letter.
“No.”
The window curtains stirred though there was no breeze. The light in the room shifted slightly, as though evening were attempting to enter but had not been invited properly.
Mr Sweeney took one step forward, then another, like a man approaching something that might suddenly speak.
He stopped beside the table.
“I don’t even remember how it starts,” he said.
Alice leaned back in her chair.
“That’s all right,” she said. “It remembers.”
He laughed weakly. “That’s not comforting.”
“No,” Alice agreed. “But it saves time.”
The letter unfolded itself.
Not dramatically. Just enough that the first line became visible.
Mr Sweeney sucked in a breath.
“I wrote that,” he whispered.
“Yes,” Alice said.
“I was angry.”
“Yes.”
“I was hurt.”
“Yes.”
“I wanted him to understand.”
Alice nodded.
“And then?” she asked.
Mr Sweeney’s voice dropped.
“Then I waited,” he said. “And by the time I wasn’t angry anymore, it felt too late.”
The room reacted to that.
Not violently. But the walls leaned in a fraction, the way people do when listening closely. The ceiling creaked once, thoughtfully.
Alice spoke very softly.
“Waiting doesn’t erase things,” she said. “It just teaches them how to survive without you.”
Mr Sweeney’s shoulders sagged.
“I forgave him,” he said suddenly. “Eventually. In my head. I told myself that was enough.”
Alice did not answer immediately.
She stood and walked to the window. She drew the curtains aside just a little more.
Outside was not a view.
It was a corridor of sorts — long, dim, lined with doors that did not have handles, only small brass plaques. Each plaque bore a phrase:
THE THING YOU MEANT TO SAY
THE DAY YOU ALMOST LEFT
THE APOLOGY YOU PRACTISED
THE QUESTION YOU NEVER ASKED
Mr Sweeney stared.
“How many of those are mine?” he asked hoarsely.
Alice glanced back at him.
“Enough,” she said.
She returned to the table.
“Forgiveness that isn’t spoken,” she continued, “still counts. But it doesn’t finish the work.”
Mr Sweeney frowned.
“What work?”
Alice tapped the letter gently.
“Release,” she said.
The letter trembled.
Mr Sweeney reached for it, then hesitated.
“What happens if I read it?” he asked.
Alice met his eyes.
“It stops travelling,” she said. “It stops arriving at places that aren’t meant to hold it.”
“And if I don’t?”
Alice did not soften this answer.
“Then it keeps becoming bigger,” she said. “Heavier. It finds stations. Corridors. People who wait.”
Mr Sweeney looked back at the doorway where the not-train waited patiently, like an animal trained not to move until called.
“So this,” he said, “this whole place—”
“Exists because of things like this,” Alice finished. “Yes.”
He exhaled shakily.
“That seems… unfair.”
Alice smiled, a little sadly.
“Yes,” she said. “Time often is.”
Mr Sweeney picked up the letter.
His hands shook, but he did not drop it.
He unfolded it fully.
Alice did not read it.
She never did.
Some things were not hers to witness.
The room grew very still.
Mr Sweeney read silently at first. Then his lips moved. Then his voice came, halting but real, filling the room with sound that had been waiting years to exist properly.
He stopped once.
Swallowed.
Then continued.
When he finished, he did not look up at once.
The room exhaled.
That was the only way Alice could describe it.
The walls eased back. The ceiling lifted slightly. One of the doors in the corridor outside closed with a soft, satisfied click.
Mr Sweeney folded the letter again.
“What now?” he asked.
Alice held out her hand.
“Now you send it,” she said.
“But—”
“Not to him,” Alice added gently. “To the moment.”
She gestured toward the open doorway.
The not-train waited.
Mr Sweeney stared at her, then at the letter.
Slowly, deliberately, he placed it on the empty seat inside the carriage.
The letter settled, content.
The door closed.
The not-train gave a small, pleased hum.
The room began to fade — not collapsing, not vanishing, but completing itself. The table, the chairs, the scuffed floor all softened, as though relieved of responsibility.
Mr Sweeney blinked.
“I feel…” He searched for the word. “Lighter.”
Alice nodded. “That’s how you know it’s finished.”
The door behind them opened.
They were back in the carriage.
The not-train moved.
This time, it really did.
The sensation was gentle but unmistakable. Outside the window, the pale space slid away, replaced by darkness, then light, then the familiar shape of rails that knew exactly where they were going.
Mr Sweeney sat heavily.
“It’s done,” he said, not quite believing it.
“Yes,” Alice said. “And because it’s done, it won’t need to happen twice.”
The not-train slowed.
Ahead, the platform emerged.
The station waited — but now it waited properly.
When the doors opened, the air felt ordinary again, which Alice knew was a good sign.
Mr Sweeney stepped down onto the platform.
He looked around.
The bench was just a bench.
The lamppost burned steadily.
The sign read, simply:
STATION
Mr Sweeney laughed — a real laugh this time.
“I suppose I should go,” he said.
Alice nodded. “Yes.”
“And you?”
“I’ll stay until the place forgets it needed me,” Alice replied.
He hesitated.
“Will I see you again?”
Alice smiled.
“If you start waiting,” she said, “probably.”
He nodded, understanding more than he said, and walked away down the platform — not early, not late, but on time.
The station sighed.
Alice remained.
The not-train faded, satisfied.
And somewhere far away, a rule quietly removed itself from circulation because it was no longer required.
For now.
Chapter Four: The Station Learns to Let Go
The station did not vanish when Mr Sweeney left.
Alice had not expected it to.
Places that existed between things rarely disappeared all at once. They preferred to linger, the way echoes do after the sound has decided it has said enough.
Alice sat on the bench that had previously held far too many objects and now held only itself. The wood was cool and faintly warm at the same time, like something unsure whether it should be comforting or merely present.
The lamppost hummed.
Not flickered. Not blinked.
Hummed—low, steady, content.
“That’s better,” Alice said aloud.
The station did not answer, but the rails relaxed. She could feel it through the soles of her shoes, a loosening that travelled the length of the track and disappeared into the sensible distance.
Alice waited.
This was not the dangerous kind of waiting.
This was the kind that tidied up after itself.
For a while nothing happened, which was itself an event. Alice watched the sky decide what colour it wanted to be and fail several times before settling on something honest.
Then the station cleared its throat.
It was a small sound, but unmistakable.
Alice turned.
At the far end of the platform stood a woman with a suitcase that had been packed too carefully. Her posture suggested someone who had already said goodbye in her head and was now waiting for the world to catch up.
“You’re early,” Alice said.
The woman startled. “Am I?”
“Yes,” Alice replied gently. “But not wrongly.”
The woman looked around, frowning slightly. “This isn’t the station I meant.”
Alice nodded. “That happens.”
The woman hugged the suitcase closer. “I don’t remember buying a ticket.”
“You wouldn’t,” Alice said. “Tickets are for journeys that expect to be completed.”
The woman studied Alice’s face.
“You’re not staff,” she said.
“No,” Alice agreed. “I’m just… making sure things don’t pile up.”
The woman hesitated.
“Is this a place for leaving?” she asked.
Alice considered the question carefully.
“It can be,” she said. “But it doesn’t insist.”
The woman exhaled, a breath she’d been holding for some time.
“That’s good,” she said. “I’ve done rather a lot of insisting lately.”
The station shifted again—subtly, approvingly. Alice felt a door somewhere close itself without a sound.
The woman sat.
They sat together, watching the empty tracks.
“I was supposed to go yesterday,” the woman said suddenly.
Alice nodded.
“I said goodbye,” the woman continued. “I meant it. Then I stayed.”
“That’s all right,” Alice said.
“But I keep thinking,” the woman said, twisting the handle of her suitcase, “that if I don’t leave properly, it will follow me.”
Alice smiled, not unkindly.
“It will,” she said. “But only until you tell it where it belongs.”
The woman frowned. “Where does it belong?”
Alice gestured gently, not to the tracks, not to the horizon, but inward.
“In the place where you admit you chose,” she said.
The woman was quiet for a long moment.
“I did choose,” she said at last. “I just didn’t want it to feel final.”
Alice looked at her.
“Final things are rare,” she said. “Finished things are more common. They’re also kinder.”
The suitcase trembled slightly, then went still.
The woman laughed softly. “That sounds like something my mother used to say.”
“Then she was probably right,” Alice replied.
A sound came down the tracks.
Not the not-train.
A real one.
Ordinary. Proper. Exactly as trains should be.
The woman stood.
“I think,” she said, “this one’s mine.”
Alice nodded. “It looks that way.”
The train arrived, doors opening with none of the drama of significance. The woman stepped on, then paused.
“Will this place still be here?” she asked.
Alice looked around.
The station had already begun to thin—not disappear, but simplify. Edges sharpening. Shadows behaving.
“It won’t need to be,” Alice said.
The woman smiled, lighter now, and boarded.
The train left.
The platform was empty again.
Alice remained.
The lamppost dimmed to a sensible glow.
The sign, which had been blank for a while, settled on a final, modest truth:
NOT IN USE
Alice stood.
She walked to the edge of the platform and stepped down onto the gravel between the rails. It crunched underfoot in the satisfying way of things that knew what they were for.
The station breathed out one last time.
Then it did something very important.
It stopped waiting.
When Alice looked back, there was no platform.
No bench.
No lamppost.
Only a stretch of ordinary track running through ordinary land, behaving impeccably.
Alice brushed dust from her skirt.
“Well done,” she told the air.
She turned and walked away along the path that had not been there before but felt as though it always had been.
Behind her, the Station Between Moments finished itself.
And because it was finished, it did not need to exist anymore.
Which, Alice knew, was the best ending any place could hope for.
Chapter Five: The Place That Refused to Finish
Alice had taken no more than a dozen steps away from where the station had been when she felt it.
Not the weight this time.
The pull.
It was subtler, more irritating — like a loose thread catching on a sleeve you had already decided to throw away. Alice stopped, sighed, and turned.
Nothing was there.
Which, she knew, was precisely the problem.
Places that finished themselves left a clean absence. This one had left a smudge.
“All right,” Alice said calmly. “You may as well come out.”
The air did not answer.
The path ahead narrowed, not by much, just enough to feel discouraging. The hedges leaned in with interest but no commitment. Birds watched in silence, which was never a good sign.
Alice stepped forward anyway.
After a few minutes, the ground began to slope — not up or down, but toward something. The world gathered itself, as though forming a thought it wasn’t proud of.
Then she saw it.
A doorway.
Not attached to anything.
Just a doorframe standing in the grass, pale wood, neatly painted, with a brass handle polished by hands that had hesitated too often.
The door was closed.
On it, written in careful lettering, were the words:
THIS IS NOT OVER.
Alice frowned.
“That’s a very rude thing for a place to say,” she told it.
The door did not reply.
She reached out and tested the handle.
It turned easily — too easily.
Inside was a room that pretended very hard not to be a room.
It had walls, but they did not quite meet the ceiling. It had a floor, but the floor did not commit to being solid everywhere at once. A table stood in the middle with a single chair, and on the table lay nothing at all.
Nothing, however, can be arranged.
This nothing was arranged carefully.
Alice stepped inside.
The door closed behind her.
“That,” she said evenly, “was unnecessary.”
The room shifted, offended.
From somewhere above her, a voice spoke — not loud, not echoing, but irritatingly reasonable.
“I didn’t agree to end.”
Alice tilted her head. “You don’t usually get a vote.”
“I was important,” the voice insisted. “I was meant to matter.”
Alice sat in the chair.
“So are a great many things,” she said. “Most of them don’t survive being postponed.”
The air thickened.
“You closed the station,” the voice said accusingly.
“Yes.”
“And now I have nowhere to go.”
Alice looked around.
“That’s because you were never meant to stay,” she said. “You were meant to be finished.”
The voice wavered. “I wasn’t ready.”
Alice leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table.
“Neither are most people,” she said. “That’s not a reason.”
The nothing on the table quivered.
A shape began to form — faint at first, then clearer. Not an object. Not a person.
A moment.
A moment paused halfway through becoming something else.
Alice recognised it immediately.
“Oh,” she said softly. “You’re not unfinished.”
“I am,” the moment insisted.
“No,” Alice corrected. “You’re avoided.”
The word landed heavily.
The walls creaked. The ceiling dipped.
“I was painful,” the moment said, smaller now. “They didn’t want to choose.”
“Yes,” Alice said. “That happens.”
“I thought if I waited,” the moment continued, “someone would come back and do it properly.”
Alice was quiet for a long time.
Then she said, “Waiting is not the same as being kind.”
The moment trembled.
“You can’t just erase me,” it whispered.
“I’m not going to,” Alice said. “I’m going to put you where you belong.”
“Where’s that?” the moment asked.
Alice stood.
She placed her hand over the centre of the table, exactly where the nothing had been arranged.
“In the person who avoided you,” she said. “Not in a place. Not in a station. Not in a doorframe in a field.”
The room shook gently, like a sigh being reconsidered.
“They don’t want me,” the moment said.
Alice smiled — not gently this time, but firmly.
“Wanting is optional,” she said. “Belonging is not.”
The door behind her opened on its own.
Beyond it was not the path, not the field, not the countryside.
It was a human interior — indistinct, blurred, unmistakable.
A mind.
A memory that flinched.
Alice gestured.
“That’s your stop,” she said.
The moment hesitated.
“What if they still don’t finish me?”
Alice’s voice softened.
“Then you’ll try again,” she said. “But next time you’ll arrive inside, where you can do less damage.”
The moment considered this.
Then, very slowly, it moved — not walking, not sliding, but settling.
The room began to dissolve.
The walls loosened. The ceiling lifted. The table faded.
Alice stepped back through the doorframe just as the door itself lost interest in being a door and became grass.
The field was ordinary again.
The path was wide.
The pull was gone.
Alice brushed her hands together.
“There,” she said. “That’s better.”
She walked on.
Somewhere, far away, a person felt a sudden, uncomfortable clarity and decided — finally — to stop pretending they hadn’t chosen already.
And the world, relieved, stayed small enough to manage.
For now.
Chapter Six: The One Who Knew Her Anyway
Alice had gone no more than a mile when she sensed the other traveller.
It was not sight or sound that gave him away, but recognition arriving early — the way it always did when someone had already met you somewhere else and simply hadn’t realised it yet.
The path split ahead of her into three directions, none of which agreed on where they were going. Alice stopped at the centre, considering them politely, when a voice spoke behind her.
“You’re going the long way round.”
Alice turned.
The man standing there looked unremarkable in the careful way that suggested effort. His coat was sensible. His boots were worn but clean. His face had the calm expression of someone who had survived several moments that might have become rules and decided not to mention it.
“I usually do,” Alice said.
He smiled — not broadly, not nervously — but with the quiet confidence of someone who had been right before and hadn’t enjoyed it.
“I thought so,” he replied. “You came through my place once.”
Alice studied him.
“Did I?” she asked.
He nodded. “Years ago. Or possibly tomorrow. It’s difficult to be exact.”
“That sounds familiar,” Alice said.
They stood together at the crossroads. The paths shifted slightly, trying to be useful.
“You don’t remember me,” the man said, without accusation.
Alice considered this carefully.
“I remember the place,” she said. “That usually means the person hasn’t finished yet.”
The man laughed softly. “That’s what you told me.”
Alice raised an eyebrow. “Then I suppose I did meet you.”
“My name’s Callum,” he said. “At least, it was when I needed it.”
Alice inclined her head. “Alice.”
“Yes,” Callum said at once. “That was it.”
They began walking, choosing the middle path without discussing it. The path seemed pleased.
“You fixed my river,” Callum said after a while.
“I don’t fix things,” Alice replied. “I stop them from breaking everything else.”
Callum nodded. “That tracks.”
He hesitated, then said, “It was the day my brother didn’t come back.”
Alice did not slow.
“Yes,” she said.
“The river kept bringing his boots ashore,” Callum continued. “Every year. Same place. Same tide. I thought it was cruel.”
“And now?” Alice asked.
“And now,” Callum said, “I know it was unfinished.”
They walked in companionable quiet for a time.
“You stayed,” Alice said eventually.
Callum smiled. “Someone had to tell the river when to stop.”
Alice approved of that.
They reached a low stone wall overlooking a stretch of land that had not yet decided what it was — field, memory, or mistake. Callum leaned on the wall. Alice sat.
“Why are you still walking?” Callum asked.
Alice looked out at the land.
“Because places keep learning bad habits,” she said. “And people keep mistaking waiting for kindness.”
Callum nodded.
“And you?” Alice asked. “Why are you walking?”
Callum took a long breath.
“Because I learned to recognise the signs,” he said. “And sometimes… sometimes I get there first.”
Alice turned to him.
“That’s dangerous,” she said.
“I know,” Callum replied. “You warned me.”
Alice smiled despite herself.
They watched the light shift. Somewhere far away, something unfinished tried very hard to become a destination and failed.
Callum spoke again.
“You know,” he said, “there are others.”
Alice did not look surprised.
“How many?” she asked.
“Not many,” Callum said. “Enough.”
“And they recognise you?” Alice asked.
Callum nodded. “Usually after the fact.”
Alice stood.
“Then you’d better keep walking,” she said.
Callum smiled. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
They parted at the wall — not dramatically, not sentimentally — but with the quiet understanding of people who knew they would meet again only if it was necessary.
As Alice walked on, she felt something settle into place behind her.
Not a station.
Not a doorway.
Not a rule.
A pattern.
And patterns, Alice knew, were much harder to stop.
But they were also much easier to recognise.
Which, she had learned, was usually enough.
Chapter Seven: When the Pattern Learns to Walk
Alice noticed the change the following morning.
It was not dramatic. Patterns never were. They preferred subtlety — the quiet confidence of repetition.
Three miles on, she passed a gate that had not been there yesterday. It opened when she did not touch it and closed again when she did. This alone would not have concerned her. Gates were often polite.
What concerned her was the chalk mark on the stone beside it.
Not a warning.
Not a name.
A small symbol, half-erased by rain and certainty:
≋
Alice stopped.
She recognised the mark.
Callum had not invented it. Neither had she. It was older than either of them — something travellers left behind when they had learned how to pass through places that had not quite decided to exist.
She knelt and traced the mark with one finger.
“Ah,” she said. “You’re teaching now.”
The wind shifted, as if embarrassed.
The First Consequence
By midday, Alice met the first person who had misunderstood the pattern.
He stood beside a footbridge that crossed nothing, staring into the space below as though waiting for water to remember itself.
“You’re late,” he said to Alice, without turning.
“I’m not,” Alice replied. “You are.”
He flinched, then looked at her sharply. His eyes were bright with the dangerous excitement of someone who had learned just enough to be wrong.
“I found a place,” he said. “It didn’t finish.”
Alice sighed inwardly.
“And instead of leaving it alone,” she said, “you tried to use it.”
The man smiled. “I helped it.”
“Show me,” Alice said.
Reluctantly, proudly, he gestured.
The space under the bridge thickened. Not water — something heavier. The air bent into a shallow basin, shimmering with reflections that did not belong to the sky above.
People appeared in it.
Not fully. Only outlines. Half-remembered shapes rehearsing things they meant to say.
The man beamed. “See? I gave them somewhere to go.”
Alice’s voice was calm.
“You gave them somewhere to stay,” she corrected. “That’s much worse.”
The basin quivered.
One of the outlines reached up, fingers scraping the underside of the bridge.
The man’s smile faltered.
“They’re grateful,” he insisted.
“They’re trapped,” Alice said gently. “You’ve turned an exit into a room.”
She stepped forward.
The man grabbed her arm. “You can’t undo it! I followed the pattern.”
Alice looked at his hand on her sleeve.
“No,” she said. “You followed the shape.”
She freed herself easily.
Then she did the simplest thing.
She named the place.
“Leave,” Alice said.
The basin thinned at once. The reflections dissolved. The outlines faded, not vanishing, but returning to where they belonged — inward, unfinished but no longer displaced.
The man staggered back.
“But—” he began.
“You didn’t want to finish your own thing,” Alice said. “So you tried to manage everyone else’s.”
The man stared at the empty space beneath the bridge.
“It was quieter before,” he said.
Alice nodded. “Quieter is not kinder.”
She walked on before he could ask her to stay.
The Second Consequence
By evening, the pattern had spread further.
Not dangerously — yet — but noticeably.
Alice encountered small signs:
- a door someone had closed properly for the first time
- a woman standing still on a road until she admitted she was leaving
- a man throwing away a notebook full of unsent letters and immediately regretting it, which was progress
But there were also symbols where there should not have been symbols.
Marks left by people who wanted certainty instead of responsibility.
Alice did not erase them.
Patterns resisted force. They responded better to neglect.
The Third Consequence (Which Was the Worst)
At dusk, Alice reached a hilltop and saw, far below, a cluster of lights.
Not a village.
Something newer.
Too symmetrical.
She watched as the lights shifted into alignment, forming something like a platform.
Not a station.
A replica.
Someone, somewhere, had decided that if one Station Between Moments had worked, another could be built.
Alice closed her eyes.
“That,” she said aloud, “is extremely unwise.”
Behind her, footsteps approached.
Callum joined her at the hilltop, breathless.
“I felt it,” he said. “Did you?”
Alice nodded. “They’re copying.”
“They don’t understand,” Callum said.
“No,” Alice replied. “They think understanding comes first.”
The lights below flickered as the structure attempted to define itself.
Callum looked at Alice.
“What happens if they succeed?”
Alice opened her eyes.
“Then unfinished things will start choosing where to land,” she said. “And that way lies noise.”
Callum swallowed.
“So what do we do?”
Alice did not answer immediately.
She watched the lights below struggle to become something official.
Then she said quietly,
“We don’t stop it.”
Callum stared. “We don’t?”
“We finish it,” Alice said.
She turned back to the road.
“That’s the only way patterns learn their limits.”
Callum fell into step beside her.
“Is that dangerous?” he asked.
Alice smiled — not unkindly, but with resolve.
“Only if we’re right.”
They walked downhill together, toward the place that was trying very hard to become important.
And somewhere ahead, a choice that could not be postponed anymore waited patiently to be made.
Chapter Eight: The Station That Wanted a Name
They reached the lights just as night decided to make up its mind.
From a distance, the replica looked almost convincing: a platform laid out with careful symmetry, lamps placed at measured intervals, a signboard already waiting for letters. It had the air of something that believed authority would arrive shortly if it stood straight enough.
Alice slowed.
Callum stopped beside her.
“Someone planned this,” he said. “Properly.”
“Yes,” Alice replied. “That’s what worries me.”
They stepped closer. The ground beneath the lights was unnaturally level, scraped smooth as though unevenness had been corrected by committee. Chalk symbols marked the edges—some careful, some hurried—variations of the same sign Alice had seen earlier, copied until its meaning thinned.
A woman in a neat coat stood at the centre, consulting a notebook. Two men adjusted a lamp that kept dimming, offended by its own brightness.
The woman looked up and smiled with relief.
“Oh good,” she said. “You’ve come.”
Alice met her gaze. “I usually do,” she said.
“You’re Alice,” the woman said promptly. “We hoped you would arrive.”
Callum shifted. “Hoped?”
The woman nodded. “It’s important to have precedent.”
Alice winced—only slightly.
“What do you call this?” Alice asked.
The woman gestured proudly. “A station. Between moments.”
The lamps flickered.
“That name’s already taken,” Alice said.
The woman laughed. “Names don’t belong to anyone.”
“No,” Alice agreed. “But consequences do.”
The woman closed her notebook with a snap. “We’re trying to help,” she said. “People keep bringing unfinished things. We’re giving them somewhere to go. Somewhere orderly.”
Alice looked around. She saw it now: small piles near the benches—objects like before, but more numerous. Letters. Shoes. Keys. A child’s drawing rolled tight, like it didn’t want to be seen.
“You’re making shelves,” Alice said quietly. “For things that need doors.”
One of the men frowned. “It’s better than chaos.”
“Is it?” Alice asked.
The signboard above them creaked and, without being asked, showed its first word:
ARRIVALS
Callum inhaled sharply.
“What happens,” Alice asked the woman, “when something arrives here and decides it wants to stay?”
The woman hesitated. “We… manage it.”
“That’s not an answer,” Alice said.
The lamps dimmed again.
Alice stepped onto the platform.
Immediately, the ground hummed—pleased, expectant. The air thickened as if applause were considering itself.
“This place wants permission,” Alice said. “It wants to be official.”
The woman straightened. “Exactly.”
Alice shook her head. “That’s the wrong kind of wanting.”
She walked to the signboard and placed her hand against the wood. It was warm—too warm—like something alive and eager.
“Listen,” Alice said, not raising her voice. “You can’t build exits. You can only open them.”
The woman’s smile tightened. “With respect, we’ve studied this.”
“Studied isn’t the same as recognised,” Alice replied.
The signboard shuddered. New letters began to appear beneath ARRIVALS:
DEPARTURES
The crowd—because it had quietly become one—murmured, relieved.
“There,” said the woman. “It’s working.”
Alice closed her eyes.
“No,” she said. “It’s copying.”
She turned to Callum. “Stand back.”
Callum did—at once.
Alice stepped to the edge of the platform and addressed the place itself.
“You want a name,” she said. “That’s understandable. Names make things feel safe.”
The lamps brightened.
“But if I name you,” Alice continued, “you’ll start collecting. And if you collect, you’ll keep. And if you keep—”
The air tightened.
“—you’ll stop things from finishing.”
A wind rose—not a storm, just a firm insistence. The chalk symbols smudged. The lamps flickered hard.
The woman shouted, “Don’t! You’ll destabilise it!”
Alice opened her eyes.
“I know,” she said. “That’s the point.”
She lifted her hand and did the last thing anyone expected.
She named it—but not the way it wanted.
“This,” Alice said clearly, “is Not a Station.”
The signboard cracked down the middle.
The lamps went out one by one, not exploding, not failing—simply realising they weren’t needed.
The platform softened. Its hard edges loosened. The symmetry faltered, relieved of duty.
The woman stared, horrified. “You can’t just—”
“Yes,” Alice said gently. “I can.”
The piles of objects trembled. One by one, they faded—not vanishing, but slipping back along invisible paths, returning inward where they belonged.
The signboard fell with a quiet thud and split into plain wood.
The place sighed.
A deep, grateful sound.
Callum stepped forward as the lights died completely.
In the sudden dark, Alice could feel it: the pattern tightening, not spreading—closing.
The woman sank onto a bench that was already becoming grass. “All that work,” she whispered.
Alice knelt beside her. “You weren’t wrong to notice,” she said. “You were wrong to keep.”
The night settled. The hilltop returned to being uneven. Ordinary stars reasserted themselves.
Within minutes, there was no platform.
Only a scuffed patch of ground and the memory of trying too hard.
Callum exhaled. “Is it over?”
Alice stood. She brushed her hands together, as she often did when a place agreed to be done.
“For here,” she said. “Yes.”
They walked away as the last of the crowd dispersed, quieter now, thoughtful.
Behind them, the hill learned how to be a hill again.
And the pattern—chastened, lighter—folded itself back into walking pace.
Which was, Alice knew, the only speed it could be trusted with.
Chapter Nine: The Decision That Didn’t Announce Itself
Morning arrived without ceremony.
Alice woke on the grass at the edge of the hill, the world behaving as though nothing of consequence had happened—which was how the world preferred it. Dew dampened the hem of her dress. A lark practiced a song it would forget by afternoon.
Callum was already awake, sitting a little distance away, staring at the place where the replica station had been and was no longer trying to be.
“You finished it,” he said, not accusing, not praising.
Alice sat up. “It finished itself,” she replied. “I only corrected its posture.”
Callum smiled faintly. “That’s what you said about the river.”
“Yes,” Alice said. “And that was true as well.”
They stood and began to walk, because standing still felt rude now that the pattern had agreed to rest. The path was ordinary again—no leaning hedges, no helpful doors—just a ribbon of earth that went somewhere without demanding to be noticed.
After a while, Callum spoke.
“There will be others,” he said. “People who saw the lights last night. People who felt the pull.”
Alice nodded. “There always are.”
“And some of them will try again,” he said. “They’ll build smaller. Quieter.”
“Yes,” Alice said. “They’ll be cleverer next time.”
Callum hesitated. “Does that mean you have to keep walking?”
Alice slowed.
This was the question that mattered. Not to the world. To her.
She stopped where the path forked—left toward low hills, right toward a village whose chimneys were just visible in the morning haze. Between the two ran a narrow strip of ground that looked as though it had once been a choice and was now tired of waiting.
“I don’t have to,” Alice said at last.
Callum studied her. “But you will.”
Alice considered the paths. She considered the rules—those that had been written, those that had removed themselves, those that never liked attention. She considered the faces of people who had recognised her too late and the places that had finished because someone had been brave enough to stop rearranging them.
“I’ll walk,” she said. “But not like before.”
Callum raised an eyebrow. “How, then?”
Alice smiled. “More slowly.”
They took the right-hand path together, toward the village. Smoke rose properly from the chimneys. Dogs barked at the hour dogs preferred. A shop bell rang and meant it.
At the village edge, Alice stopped.
“This is where we part,” she said.
Callum nodded. “I know.”
He hesitated, then said, “What do I tell them? The ones who ask?”
Alice thought for a moment.
“Tell them,” she said, “that if something keeps arriving, it’s because it hasn’t been welcomed properly. And that exits aren’t built. They’re opened.”
Callum smiled. “They won’t like that.”
Alice smiled back. “They never do.”
He turned toward the village. After a few steps, he glanced back. “Will I see you again?”
Alice watched the light settle on the rooftops.
“If you start waiting,” she said, “probably not.”
Callum laughed and went on.
Alice turned to the other path—the one that led away from villages, away from stations, away from places that wanted names. She walked it for a while, listening to the sound of her steps, feeling the day decide itself without help.
At a bend in the road, she stopped.
This time, she did not feel a pull or a weight. Just a quiet understanding.
Alice stepped off the path and sat beneath a hawthorn tree. She took out her small notebook and, at last, wrote a single line:
Finish what you start.
And don’t make a place of waiting.
She closed the notebook and left it at the base of the tree, where someone else might find it or might not, which was as it should be.
When Alice stood again, the path behind her had softened. The path ahead had sharpened.
She chose neither.
Instead, she turned slightly and walked across the field, making a new line that would fade by evening.
Behind her, nothing followed.
And ahead of her, the day—properly finished—went on.
Epilogue: What Remained After the Waiting
Years later—though years had become an unreliable unit—people spoke of Callum as though he had always been there.
He lived in different places at different times and, occasionally, in the same place twice without troubling anyone about it. He repaired gates that did not strictly need repair. He stood with people while they finished sentences they had been carrying too long. He never hurried them, and he never let them linger.
When asked what he did, Callum said he walked.
When pressed, he said he noticed.
That was usually enough.
He learned the signs the way one learns weather: not by charts, but by attention. The way a doorstep felt too patient. The way a letter grew heavier the longer it stayed in a pocket. The way a path widened when someone finally admitted they were leaving.
Callum did not build stations.
He opened doors and then stood aside.
If a place began to gather, he named it gently—almost, nearly, not yet—and the naming loosened it. If someone tried to make shelves for unfinished things, he moved the shelves into the open air and waited until they became benches again.
Sometimes people recognised him.
“You’re one of hers,” they said.
Callum smiled and replied, “Only when it’s necessary.”
As for the pattern, it survived—because patterns always do—but it learned restraint.
Without stations, it had nowhere to pool. Without names, it had nothing to cling to. It thinned itself into habits rather than structures, into nudges rather than places.
It lived on as:
- the pause before a door was closed properly
- the breath taken before an apology was spoken
- the sudden, uncomfortable clarity that arrived just in time
The pattern did not announce itself anymore. It no longer arrived with lights or platforms or helpful signs. It moved quietly, inside people, where it could do the least harm and the most good.
Those who tried to trap it found it slippery.
Those who tried to manage it found it tiring.
Those who finished what they started found they no longer needed to notice it at all.
Once, many years later, Callum reached a low stone wall at dusk and found someone sitting there.
Not waiting.
Just sitting.
“You’re early,” Callum said.
The girl smiled.
“I usually am,” she replied.
They watched the light together as it decided what it wanted to be.
Callum did not ask her name.
She did not offer it.
That was how he knew she would not stay.
When she stood to leave, she said only one thing:
“Tell them not to build.”
Callum nodded. “I do.”
She walked away—not down the road, not across the field, but along a line that would fade by morning.
Callum watched until she was gone.
Then he turned and went the other way, because there were still things to finish, and no one else was keeping count.
The world, relieved of waiting rooms and clever constructions, remained just slightly unfinished.
Which, everyone agreed—though rarely out loud—was exactly right.
THE END
The Crazymad Writer Writes Again 