The Track

         As night fell and darkness rose a great shushing finger was pressed upon the land. With cloud and snow the land’s life was silenced, and with it all scrap of humanity or warmth. Wind rustled the patches of dead grass that rose from the snow like fondue sticks, and the trees were laden with snow, which skimmed off in fine mist with each chilling gust.

         The rumbling hulk cleaved through the deep snow in its path, and upon its many sections sat dark figures, hunched and morose in their thin scraps of blanket swaddled around them. The track was old and worn, and sections where the metal had bent or cracked from cold caused the cars to lurch one after the other, each tied to their neighbour’s fate.

         “Stars,” Rylon said, breaking the silence that hung over the men like thick mist. Their necks craned back and they saw -- in a brief section where cloud had broken -- a window of brilliant light, speckled across the blackness. The window closed just as quickly as it had come, and Rylon scratched at a louse that had somehow dug itself into his frost-laden beard.
         “I’m hungry,” A child’s voice was heard above the rumbling din.
         “Ain’t we all,” A grim-looking soldier replied, spitting. “Bloody cold with kill us before any hunger,” The child began to whimper, and someone swore, silencing him. Flea-bitten and hungry, the refugees sat in their stupor, waiting for the night’s embrace to leave them with the brief and meagre light of dawn. A single yellow beam of light guided their way, flickering with each bump; a paltry slice of knowing in the thick darkness of unknowing.