The shinkansen liaison

Act I - Magic

Flashback: It was the end of the afternoon, with pasty tones of purple and orange painting the sky, as the clouds covered the sun. The summer had begun strong. On that Thursday, July 28th, the heat was peaking...; the train station's monitors were showing the current temperature as being of 103 ºF.
Dan was sitting in one of the platform's benches, finishing the reading of the newspaper and drinking an iced soda. He could listen to the people commenting the crazy heat wave that was devastating the land; between pages, he was seeing shades of people getting in and out of trains, looking for someone, or finding them. Having read the newspaper, Dan shoved it into his handbag, took an handkerchief out, and wiped the sweat of his forehead. Then, he looked impatient to his watch, and mumbled.

He was to catch the 19.25 train coming from Cerymur to Opletu. His destination was the station before Opletu, a remote (and small) station of Uhra town, located in the mid-west. Too bad that the train was running late... and the trip was supposed to be, at least, 2 hours long.
Up until this time Dan was reading his newspaper, and a «PC Guide» magazine and laughing inside to the tardy persons who had to hurry in order to catch their transportation. His bottle of water had now emptied. He was fresh out of liquids. And the heat squeezing his throat....
He took a small orange from his handbag and began peeling it. It was lucky, that he had bought some oranges - a pound, more precisely - in his previous stop (and it was a brief one).

It was his last orange, now and he decided to eat it as he observed the sunset, the birds cawing in the sky, the breeze beginning to rise, the people going on their daily business. Too bad, however; that orange was bitterer than the other he had tasted.
It wasn't sweet, but it could provide him with the liquid he craved - and that the orange had. The worse part, though, was the fact that his hands were getting more and more sticky as was only left with only the fruit's seeds. Blasted heat.
As he had those tiny grains in his hand, he thought, "they say that it can bring good fortune, to grow some orange trees. Time to plant me a few, luck is always welcome".
And he threw them away; they spread on the platform and through the rocks that enclosed the railroad.

Dan was a journalist for a TV network company in the East Coast, and, on the day before, he had received a strained call from his younger sister in order for him to meet her. "As fast as possible", she said, "you've got to help me". Finally, a whistle sounded, and a voice in the loudspeaker announced the oncoming train.

Dan took a seat at the window and saw the shades of the station staying behind as the train began to move. "What has my ditzy sister got herself into ?", he thought out loud. His sister Autumn, though, was one of the few people that he cared for, as he watched her grow up and was accustomed to take her out of trouble. It must be as they say, that older brothers are more responsible. But she was a bit out of line now. He was trying to make peace with his boss for having missed a report about some old lady's dancing lessons. And now, to bail out just like that wasn't the best way to do it. As his boss had said: "I'm fed up with having to put up with your eccentricities !!".
And now, there he was heading towards some peasant's village because of one more of his sister's whims.