The lost ravine

He could definitely enjoy a little sleep; but a while later, maybe 20 minutes after, a steward with a bell ringing waked him as she was walking across (through) the train's aisle and announcing that it was time for the scheduled meal.
Although he was not hungry, probably due to the heat, Dan got up, along with his aging travelling companion, accidentally a boring one. Heading to the dining compartment, he ordered a cabbage soup, and picked the loneliest spot of the room to sit.
Only after he sat, he thought why he had done that. It was a journalist reflex, to choose a privileged observer's spot so he could perceive the room and the people on it. Watch how they moved, they interacted, their gestures, even the decoration... he couldn't do anything else for a living, observing things was almost an obsession.
"Good, the soup isn't hot", he thought, and began eating it when, suddenly, the train's brakes caused everyone to be thrown to the room's front.

All objects were flying in all directions, chairs, glasses, dishes, bottles, spoons knocked over, causing a whole mess. The tables were fixed to the floor, making some people pinched in them. Dan was projected to the nearest wall, which was very near, fortunately, and rose up just in time to help a woman, who was entering the room when the emergency stop occurred, and was immediately tossed from the other side of the room to the wall where Dan was. They held on to a table until the train came to a complete stop.

Dan was one of the firsts to run to the window to check what happened. As he asked the woman if she was alright, he noticed the transparent file folder that she was carrying and now picked from the floor. As it passed by his luminous watch's face, he could read the title of the head page, in the fluorescent light: "ZAMA JINKA".

Outside the window there was no illumination, since the train's lights went out. He saw a mass of land, and further away, some knocked down high tension poles lying on the ground. One of them was on the railroad, in front of the train. Further away, he couldn't see anything.

Past to present

To get to the train station of Keut -- from where he could get the train coming from Cerymur- from the eastern Remesh, (the big city of small stories, as he called it), Dan had to catch the plane to Delphinus - and from there take a bus to Keut. He had to be in the very punctual 7:40 flight to arrive in Keut at, approximately, 10:00.
He knew this from some of his sister's indications, and his ability to find places: after all, he was a journalist. But even so, he had trouble finding the location of a place that was hardly mentioned in most maps he consulted. But from Autumn's mails he received in the past months, he had a vague idea of where it was.

Autumn, his sister, younger than him by 8 years, was named so because their grandmother loved that season very much for the way that the trees' leaves bathed the ground in an yellow texture. Their mom had always told their grandmother that if she ever had a daughter, her name would be Autumn, which came to happen.
Despite her name, she had most of the time a very energetic disposition, somewhat rebel, always dancing and singing to her heart's content. She was quite skilled at dancing and could have pursued a dancing career, but in conclusion, she lacked courage to oppose their parents, and so, ended choosing a more stable career, although putting behind what could be a promising future. She went to Biology, and after graduating, began a post-graduation in Genetics.
For two years now that she had moved to the Mid-west, since she got a position as a lab assistant in a kind of pioneering investigation, and Dan only would see her when she came to meet him in the east coast.

Dan, by the other hand, was never that much feisty, but became stranded when he had to pick a career, and in the end he landed on journalism, since the words were an early passion for him. The landscapes outside the train were shifting from factories, trade places to forests, fields, desolate houses, roads, and more railroad. Not just a displacement in space, but in time too.
An old lady, sitting next to him, started to make small talk to him, maybe just to make the hours seem quicker, or maybe it was the destiny's way to make him suffer for not having covered the "old ladies can dance" story.

Annoyed, he simply leaned over his head to the window and pretended that he was very sleepy.
To pass the time he started to imagine what the crew would serve to dinner. A quick glance to the watch showed him that it would take one more hour to get to Uhra town. Time was in march.

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.