The Train That Skipped the War

How it begins

The war ended between the soup course and the next station. Iris Fen knew because the soldier sitting beside the kitchen door stopped existing halfway through a complaint about cabbage.

His bowl remained. His spoon struck the floor. Beyond the train window, the burned fields turned green.

Iris grabbed the counter before the carriage lurched. She had cooked through eight months of troop transports, learning to stretch lentils, ignore rumors and keep boiling water ready for people whose needs exceeded hunger. None of those skills explained the empty chair.

Pavel Moss came into the kitchen carrying a map. A bandage covered his left shoulder. The map showed a front line disappearing beneath his thumb.

'Have you seen outside?'

'I've seen inside.'

They looked at the abandoned bowl. In the corridor, passengers began laughing. Someone opened a newspaper dated two years later. Its lead story concerned the harvest. The country named on its masthead had never declared war.

Iris touched Pavel's bandage. It remained stained.

'Why are you still hurt?'

'I don't think the train has finished choosing what happened.'

At the next station, a woman waited with flowers. She called for a passenger who did not recognize her. He wore a wedding ring that grew warm as she approached. Another traveler began crying over a photograph whose faces were changing.

The conductor announced a timetable correction. They could reverse to the previous junction and restore the scheduled route. Several passengers cheered. Others barred the connecting door.

Pavel gripped the map. 'Don't let them.'

'People are disappearing.'

'People disappear on the other route too.'

Iris looked at the bowl, the green fields, the wounded man asking to keep a peace that had not healed him. Beneath the table, a letter slid from an empty coat pocket. It was addressed to her, in handwriting she had last seen before the war began.