Avianna was only 5 years old when her parents died. They died in an unfortunate automobile accident that involved a broken railway crossing arm and a poorly lit country road. After that, Avianna went to go live with her uncle. She didn't bring very much with her; her clothes, some toys, and a few things with which to furnish a little girl's room. Her uncle wasn't married and didn't have any children, so she lived a relatively lonely life.
Her uncle lived next to the railway tracks. Most people found the sound of the trains annoying, but growing up there, Avianna grew to find the low rumble and soft clickedy-clack of the trains to be soothing.
She didn't notice The Train for a long time, because she was asleep long before it came. Even so, because she was so lonely and the house was so big and empty she would often lie awake at night and play with her stuffed animals, or just listen to the radio turned down low so her uncle wouldn't hear. She had no idea what the adults on the radio were saying, but it didn't matter. Maybe it was just her mind playing tricks on her, but sometimes the people on the radio sounded like her parents, the sound of their distant voice floating up from the living room downstairs. Sometimes she would have nightmares and wake up, not able to go back to sleep for hours.
Between these two things, she was still pretty young when she noticed The Train. The thing that was special about The Train was that it always went passed the house at exactly 12:37 at night. Every day of the week, no matter the weather or the holidays, she always heard it's first plaintive whistle at 12:37 exactly. It was moving very fast, this train, and it must not have been very long, because it was always gone by 12:38.
Once she noticed The Train, it became a sort of instant relaxation for her. All the trains were soothing, but as soon as she heard The Train coming she would be asleep in an instant, no matter how lonely or how afraid she was.
Sometimes she thought about getting up to watching the train go past through her window, but for some reason, she never did. In her mind, The Train was an old 19th century wooden passenger train, trimmed in blue, bound for adventure. She didn't want to face the fact that it was probably just a freight train carrying car parts and cattle and huge tanks of oil, rushing from one suburban wasteland to the next.
As Avianna grew older, The Train became more and more integral to her ability to sleep properly. She never slept well at sleepovers, despite being surrounded by friends. For once she was not alone, but without the sound of the tracks, the world just seemed too quiet. If she was up late, and wasn't in bed when The Train went passed, she wouldn't be able to sleep. Once or twice Avianna threw herself in bed with her clothes still on, just so she would be in bed by 12:37.
The funny thing she realized was that The Train always came at 12:37 according to her old bedside clock-radio. The clock-radio was one of the few things she had from back before her parents died. Every time she had to reset the clock, it would be put off by a minute or two, but The Train didn't seem to care. By the time she was older it was off by a whole 7 minutes, according to her cellphone, which was controlled by satellite. It didn't matter what the other clocks in the house said, it would only come when her clock-radio said it was 12:37.
For her 11th birthday her uncle got her a new clock-radio that also had a built in CD player. She plugged it in and set up the alarm. The next morning she was woken by a terrible, otherworldly screeching emanating from the CD player. It was too high pitched and tangy to be a normal radio noise. It was horribly loud. She jabbed frantically at the volume control but no matter what she did it stayed the same. She yanked out the plug and sank back, panting. She put the CD player in her closet and her old clock-radio back beside her bed.
Perhaps it was because she grew up so close to trains that she got her first job at the train station, selling tickets and checking passes. It was the summer after she graduated from high school, right before she finally left her uncle's house. She was content to sit idly in the ticket booth between commuter runs, enjoying the babble that went on around her. One day she over heard her manager talking. "No trains are coming on Friday nights this entire month," he was saying.
Well, thought Avianna, that's not true. The Train went passed last Friday night. It was unthinkable for The Train not to go passed. "What about the 12:37 train?" she asked her manager.
He blinked at her. "What 12:37 train?" he asked.
"The train that always comes down the line at about 12:37 every night," she said matter-of-factly.
"There is no such train," he told her.
Disbelieving, Avianna went to go check the white board where the train schedule was posted herself. But there was no train that came every day at 12:37. The occasional train that did come in around that time certainly didn't come every day, all year, no matter the weather or the holidays.
Upset, Avianna went home that night and made a decision. That night, she would wait up and watch for The Train. She got into her pyjamas and waited by the window.
12:36.
Avianna strained to see the light she knew would appear out of the darkness.
12:37.
Avianna double checked her clock-radio. She fidgeted.
12:38.
This had never happened before.
Avianna went to bed deeply disturbed, but she didn't get a single moment's sleep that night.
She thought maybe waiting for it had jinxed it. The next night, she lay down in bed, ready to jump up at the first whistle and look through the window.
12:36.
Avianna lay perfectly still, heart beating in her ears, her breath coming quickly.
12:37.
What happened? Had they suddenly discontinued the run?
12:28.
Tears welled up in her eyes. She didn't know what to think.
The next night was the same, and the next, and the next. The Train was gone. Avianna began to sleep worse than she had since see was little. She was constantly tired and cranky. She was forced to quit her job at the train station because she was preforming so poorly.
Things got a bit better when she moved away. In her dorm, she got into the habit of staying up very late on the computer, falling into bed exhausted in the small hours of the morning.
In her second year of collage, she decided to move out of the dorm and rent her own apartment. She looked at many, but there was one place that she liked above all the others.
"Don't you find it creepy, living next to the train tracks?" her friend asked her.
"No," Avianna answered. "Why would I?"
"Didn't you say your parents got hit by a train? Isn't that how they died?"
She didn't know what to say. She'd never even thought of that. Her parents had died so long ago, it hardly seemed to matter how they'd died.
But the thought stayed with her, and for some reason, the one thing she managed to get out of it's box that first night was her clock-radio. The paint was faded and a piece was lose and rattling around inside, but it still worked.
She lay in bed, thinking about her parents. She could barely remember them. In fact, she better remembered being woken up in the middle of the night to be told they had died. She remembered staring in awe at her clock, showing a time so late she had never been awake to see it before. The glaring red numbers had been the only light in her small, dark room. What time had they read? She could swear she knew . . .
Avianna heard the faint, distance cry of a train whistle. After a second she could hear the low rumble and the first clickedy-clack of the railroad ties.
Her eyes flew open.
12:37.