Nobody explained why, so we just walked through the forest at night. We didn’t even have a flashlight. It was cold — that green, biting kind of cold that wraps around your ankles and stays. Even in summer, the nights were like that. It wasn’t easy to feel the right areas to step — dry, clean, and plain. But year after year, we could nearly run before the sunset came.
The train finally arrived — never on time, never fully stopping. It smelled like vodka, metal, and arguments — the ugliest train I’d ever seen. Three shelves to sleep on, all on one side, usually preoccupied. The highest shelf was just wood, no ladder. And finally, we got behind the ceiling — all four of us.
With the first morning light, I saw the names we passed. They were magic to me — Raisin, Salt. Izuim. Sil. Towns that don’t exist anymore. One turned to rubble. One swallowed by the map. Still, I remember the names. Not because they mattered. Because they were there.
We didn’t rent a house. We couldn’t. We slept in clothes. The tent was too thin. Sand gathered on the floor, and mom blamed us for it. Or maybe for being born. She tried to clean the earth. I stopped trying to understand her.
The river was wide — purple plum at night, silver mirror in the morning. Pines stood like they’d always been waiting. I never felt sacred in churches. But here — this cold, this silence — it touched me like nothing else ever has. By the lake, the reeds were too tall to pass. Their brown velvet heads swayed like they were humming. I wanted to take one home, but I wasn’t allowed. It was the right decision. They would’ve fallen apart.
The benches were never in a straight line. Paint peeled the same way every year, like it gave up pretending. This was the center of everything and nothing — a square made for gathering, even when no one had anything to say. On weekends, the square turned into a market. People arrived on bicycles, slow and dusty, balancing bags on handlebars. They sold pies, mushrooms, corn — still warm, still breathing. The apricot stuck to your fingers. The corn left your teeth sweet and soft. The grass was never quite dry, but it didn’t matter. Shoes off, toes half in the mud, half in the sun. There was nothing to accomplish. No lesson to learn. Just that kind of love that doesn’t save you – love that let you exist.
We didn’t sleep much the night before, kept checking the bags again and again. Parents stirred around four — not with words, just the sound of zippers and footsteps. The sun only started to rise when we dressed. Then the first bus.
The second city was bigger, but not more important — just where the trains were. We sat in the station lobby under fans that didn’t move, bags at our feet like we’d been traveling for days. We weren’t sure we could make the next one. The stop was short. At the transfer stop, some of us ran to the cashier. It didn’t leave without us.
The final train was quiet. Not empty — just done speaking. We stood near the back door and watched the landscape change. Factories melted into pale pine hills. The sand turned brick-red. The trees were different here — tall, dry-barked, not landscaped. They didn’t follow roads. They didn’t look new. We were almost there. We walked the last part through a forest so thick the light came in sharp, like it had to fight its way through.
We grew older and still went back. Once, we weren’t alone. A classmate, someone’s friend, a guy from our school who never said much. We stayed out too late. Another beach — smaller, colder, but far enough. We didn’t say anything important. But we meant it.
Laughed about teachers. Asked dumb questions. Watched the sky go pink and purple. We didn’t kiss. But something passed between us anyway. Something that leaves before you name it.
After the train pulled into our station, we had to cross the bridge. Trains below, footbridge above — the usual layout. But mom was afraid of bridges. So she ran between the trains instead. Didn’t say anything. Just slipped away. And for a moment, we breathed with full lungs. Sand still on our legs. Freedom, sudden and strange. That was the happiest part of the trip.
The high green bush behind our apartment had grown wild. The line near the store bent around the corner. The same neighbors still injected heroin outside our door.
At home, the water still crashed into our legs when we lay in bed — even though it wasn’t there. The floors were dry. The room familiar but distant, like it hadn’t missed us.
Nothing was wrong. But nothing fit quite right.