Place the note on your pillow and make yourself still. Breathe slower. Stop the pounding of your heart. You really shouldn’t worry so much. Save that for the daytime.
Quiet yourself. Soon the sheets will stop rustling and your clothes will, too, and silence will prevail in your bedroom. Wait, listen for the sound of your mother’s snoring loud and clear in the next room.
Good. She’s asleep.
Ever so quietly put your weight on the floor. You know by now which board creaks. Avoid it. Turn the doorknob carefully and pull it shut again behind you. Pass her door and then tread carefully, carefully down along the hall.
Remember, she’s a light sleeper. Any little sound will wake her up.
It’s this rush of excitement that makes it all worth it. It’s not dangerous, of course you wouldn’t do anything dangerous. Never. But it’s exciting all the same, because you could get caught. You won’t get caught, but you could.
Step lightly through the house, that’s it. Almost there. Do not mind the walls that surround you. Do not mind the left that presses against you. Do not mind the right that contains you. Do not mind the ceiling that traps you. Do not mind the darkness behind that pulls you back. Only mind the front; forward motion is the only escape. Almost there.
There’s a box in front of the door. A new obstacle. Do not flinch, you’ve dealt with this before. It’s closed, you don’t know what’s inside it. There’s only one thing to do: hope it won’t make any noise.
Slide your fingers beneath the box. It’s empty. Let out the breath you’ve been holding. Relax. Put the box aside, not too far. If you forget to replace it, the cats can be blamed.
This is the difficult part. Lean your weight on the door. Pull up on the handle and turn the little knob to unlock it. Minimal noise. Good. Very good. Push down on the handle and slide open the door.
Feel the cold night air on your body. Really feel it, let it pull at you, let it change you slowly. Close your eyes. You can feel the breath of the sky on your skin. But don’t wait too long. She’ll feel the draft, even subconsciously, and she’ll wake.
Close the door as carefully as you opened it. Don’t get excited because you have been thus far successful. Any noise at any moment will make this night a defeat. And that would be a shame, wouldn’t it, at attempt number one hundred and sixty-eight, to finally fail?
The door slides closed with as little noise as it ever does. Breath deeply. Let the air fill your lungs. Feel it prick at the skin on your face. It’s even more fun in the winter, isn’t it? When the air is colder and you have to fight your own desire to curl up and sleep. When you have to remind yourself you’re not a cold-blooded animal, immobilized by lower temperatures. Your body is meant to fight the cold. So fight it.
Turn right. Around the corner of the house is the fence. You’re nimble now, you know how to do it. Step up on the pile of bricks. Trust yourself not to fall. That’s the trick, really. Of course you might fall, of course you’ll probably fall, of course you should fall, but you haven’t, and you won’t, because you know you won’t. That’s the trick.
Pull yourself up onto the fence. Balance yourself. It would be silly to fall now. Steady.
Good.
The roof is only a half-foot above the top of the fence. Stand up, you’re steady enough by now. First step lands on the fence, second step reaches over the gutter, third step and you’re there.
Look, you can see the stars well from here. Not as well as if you were farther away from the city. But they’re there. It’s the best time of the year for this. After Christmas, so the lights are all down. And it’s almost as if the frost in the air adds to their luminescence as they hang up there in the sky.
Sit and stare, stare at the lights. Don’t be afraid. The night is scary inside, where it’s dark and only dark. Everything surrounds you, everything you’ve ever done. You can see it play before your eyes, you can feel it weigh upon your shoulders.
But how can you be afraid up here? Up here the stars are with you. No evil can exist beneath the stars, it’s just not possible. It’s taken you a long time to realize this, but you know it now.
Listen. It’ll come if you wait. You hear it every night, always around midnight. Who knows who else hears it? But you can hear it, a low rumble in the distance, like a thunderstorm racing across the sky -
Thump.
What was that? It seems like it came from the next rooftop over, but how can that be?
“Hey! Are you waiting for the train?”
Calm down. No need to panic. Just find the source of the voice. Look, see, someone’s on the other roof.
Just calm down.
“Yes you. Are you waiting for the train?”
A joke, perhaps?
Say: “What train?”
“Isn’t this the station?”
Certainly a joke. You’re on a roof, not at a train station. Stop shaking your head like that, you look like an idiot.
“Of course not. It wouldn’t drive this low.”
That was quite a dramatic leap, wasn’t it? Straight from that roof to this one. Regard him. Thin and tall like an evening shadow. Eyes that seem to glow. You shouldn’t be able to tell the color of a person’s eyes at night, but his are definitely blue, a cold, sharp blue like a star. He has a bindle over his shoulder, like a good old-fashioned train-hopper. He wears his grin like a regular garment.
“You wouldn’t happen to know where the station is, would you?”
Say: “What station?”
“The train station. I seem to be lost. I haven’t stopped here before. I’ll be late for the train if I don’t get there soon. Oh, you don’t know, do you? Hmm. That old man told me something, I know it, it’s just…”
My, what is he going on about? Tell him there’s a train station downtown.
“On which rooftop?”
Say: “It isn’t on any rooftop, it’s on the ground like any other train station.”
“Well, I’m not looking for The Anyother Train, I’m looking for the Nightwind Express.”
The Nightwind Express?
“It’s a train that shoots straight through the atmosphere, touches down on one rooftop, and then back out into the sky.”
There’s something wrong with this guy.
“Would you like to see it?”
No, you would not like to see it.
“Well, I’ve got to go. See you around.”
Watch him turn. Watch him carefully. And then – oh! Peculiar. But yes, that seems like a ladder from your roof to the next. It simply appeared. Or was it there before?
Ask: “Where did the ladder come from?”
“The, er, the light of the stars magnified by the curvature of the atmosphere, it, er, well, the light causes the material to solidify where normally it’s – magic. It’s magic.”
Stare.
“Alright. It’s not magic. But it’s complicated. Are you coming or not?”
Say: “I’m afraid.”
“No, you’re not.”
That grin hasn’t left his face. This is a dream, that’s it, it’s a dream. You fell asleep on the roof and now you’re dreaming.
Well, go on. If it’s a dream you might as well make it an exciting one.
Step on the ladder. It certainly is solid. The nimbleness you’ve acquired in recent months will help you follow swiftly after the starlit stranger.
Race after him, quickly now, don’t let him get away. Climb one ladder straight up, slide down a pole straight down. Don’t stop to stare at the ladders. They could be made of stardust for all you know, that won’t make it any easier to climb them.
Cross over the street on a long bridge. Don’t fall. Don’t-! Hold on. Don’t let your fingers slip.
Accept his help. Keep running.
The buildings grow taller, they stretch towards the sky. Don’t look down – oh dear, you are up very high, aren’t you? The harsh light of the streetlamps seems to glare at you from below. They tell you to come down. Don’t listen to them. Streetlamps know nothing of stars.
Pull yourself up onto the rooftop and regard the stranger again. He shrugs.
“Honestly, I thought it was this one.”
Say: “Maybe the tallest building? So it doesn't have to be as close to the ground?”
He snaps his fingers at your tentative remark.
“You’re one smart kid.”
It seems rather obvious to you, doesn’t it? Regardless, follow his ambling path up the building via the intricate pattern of ladders and bridges adorning your otherwise ordinary town.
Oh, look, now we’re getting poetic about it. Just follow.
Pull yourself onto another rooftop – oh. You’re at the top of it all now. Everything is below you, everything in the world for miles. Watch the world drop away from you, watch everything fade.
No, no, look up. Look above you. Have you ever noticed that sometimes the sky looks like it’s arching up, like the point directly above your head is the farthest away? Oh, but have you noticed that sometimes it seems as if you could reach right up and touch the sky, that it arches down and then curves away into a deep blue unknown? Have you ever -
Listen.
It must be midnight now; you can hear the thunder. Though it sounds far away, it seems to shake the stars. But it’s louder now, louder than ever before. Turn to the stranger, ask him what is happening!
He laughs. That’s alright, let the smile through. It’s a marvelous sight, it’s a marvelous sound, it’s a marvelous feeling through your bones.
“It’s the train!”
His voice seems to be ripped away from the both of you as the sound gets louder, louder, louder… there it is.
A moment ago it was a star, but now it’s brighter. Like it’s moving towards you. It is moving towards you. Now would be the time to turn to your new friend in an alarmed manner.
“I’m going to assume you’ve never been train hopping before! Hold on tight! And when I say jump, jump!”
Take his hand.
Is he excited, or is he just yelling because the sound is growing exponentially louder around you? A bit of both, perhaps. Deafening noise, but a beautiful sound, like the breathing of the entire world at once –
Why, but it is a train!
It hurtles past you at a remarkable speed, curving down from the sky and then upward again into the night. Look at your friend – oh dear, he’s saying something, but you just can’t hear it. Listen closely, listen. All these words, all the light in his eyes, all the spark in his gaze, all the stardust in his movements, but nothing can overcome the deafening roar –
“JUMP!”
Well, come on, do it!
The earth falls away, everything falls away from you, and now you are a shooting star in the sky. Light flashes past you in brilliant colors, brilliant shades of white and silver and gold. You can feel the light of a thousand suns shining in your own eyes; you can see the wind of a thousand moons in your breath.
You’re on a train.
“There you go, steady.”
Turn to him. Don’t try to hide the grin on your face. The Nightwind Express. You’re riding it.
“There’s this trick, you see, but only if you’re ready. See, you find a handle on the side like this, grip it tight, and then-”
He leans out into the night, smile twinkling like just another star. He lets out a yell.
Should you do it? Of course you should. Silly question.
Reach for a handle. That’s it. Hold it tight, real tight. Two hands, if you must. It’s alright to be scared. But you have to do it anyway.
Swing yourself away from the train and into the sea of lights. Feel the sigh of the universe. Listen to the song of everything.
Think: I am above. There is nothing hanging over me. Everything that is near me I choose, and everything else is beneath. Some day I might get off this train and my feet will touch the ground again. Some day I will be beneath, I will be amongst, I will be between. But I will always remember the moment that I overcame it all. I will always remember this moment, because right now I am ABOVE
