The Woman on the Orient Express

by Lindsay Jayne Ashford

me. The movement unmasks the sinking sun, whose fiery glow blinds me. As I blink away a flurry of green disks, he trips over the syllables of his name. It is a name from long ago. A name that carries the scent of Turkish cigarettes and hot desert winds.

Must a promise be kept when the author of the secret is dead and gone?

How is it, she thought, that one can create a character who is more intelligent, more observant, more perceptive than oneself?

The teacher had spoken of love and suffering and Christ in the garden

of Gethsemane. She had told them that they would all, at some time in their lives, feel as he had, utterly alone and forsaken by everyone—even by God. When that time came, Miss Johnston said, they must hold on to the belief that this was not the end, that God was there and would help them if they put their trust in him.

‘When everything goes against you and you get to a point when it seems you can’t hang on a minute longer, never, never give up—for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.’”

The trouble with still, peaceful places was that they allowed all manner of uninvited thoughts to push their way inside your head.

For the train, like life, must go on until it reaches its destination. You might not always like what you see out of the window, but if you pull down the blind, you will miss the beauty as well as the ugliness.