Here’s a little something I have been working on.  There are a few parts of it.  I’ll drop them in to the blog over a couple of days.  Let me know what you think.

- Alistair

Ryan sat on the platform behind Storehouse Number Eight and waited for the sun to rise over the distant bank of cloud.  Beneath him old timbers groaned with age, behind him the storehouse was as empty as ever, and he watched with his customary awe the start of another day.  The sky to the east was red, the dark cloud layer stained at the edges, but above it was clear with stars still shining brightly.

The Elders were hoping for rain, they always hoped for rain, but Ryan was certain they would be disappointed again.  The hydroponics were already beginning to suffer and rumours were rife of sabotage on the incoming pipes.  He had been trying to ignore them; after all, he was turning eleven today.  That was stressful enough.

Eleven was a landmark birthday, celebrating one full year after their first decade in the village.  And traditionally a date that saw the arrival of the Railman.

It was said that the Railman appeared on your eleventh birthday, took one look at you and decided if you were to leave with him or stay.  Where you went was anyone’s guess.  The few who had come back never spoke of it.  But the Railman had not been to the village for as long as Ryan was alive.  His cynical friends, expecting that the Railman wouldn’t arrive, made fun of his discomfort and secretly, in spite of their jeering bravado, they feared he might return.

The sun was starting to rise over the clouds and he breathed deeply waiting for the dawn bell.  He could see the dawn light highlighting the rails winding their trail across the sky.  Ryan could barely make out the shapes travelling along them, presumably the first of the cargo hoppers on their way, chasing the dawn.  He got to his feet slowly and rubbed his bare legs to generate some warmth.  The early morning chill demanded more than this sandals, vest and shorts but with the sun rising the temperature would get comfortable soon enough.  He walked along the platform to the rope ladder he had fashioned months before, after he found the old hatch hidden at the end of one of the abandoned corridors and subsequently the platform.  It was a place long forgotten, or so he thought, and it was somewhere he could rest away from the dorms.

The bell tolled again.  Time to get ready for work.

And for Ryan, time to prepare for the Railman.

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