Night on the Milky Way Railway

by Kenji Miyazawa

  "Yes, could you? It's cool enough inside now."

  Giovanni stood up and closed the window, tidied up the plate and the bread bag, and then hurriedly put on his shoes.

  "OK ma, I'll be back in an hour and a half," he said, as he hurried out the door into the night.

  Chapter 4 - Night of the Centaur Festival

  Giovanni had a lonely look on his face, as if he were whistling, as he walked down the hill into town, the black silhouettes of the cypress trees lining both sides of the road.

  A magnificent pale-blue light shone from a large street lamp standing at the bottom of the hill. As he got closer and closer to the light, the long wispy shadow that had been trailing behind him like a ghost, grew darker and became more distinct. Now it began to lift its legs and swing its arms, and now it moved around beside him and started walking side by side.

  Look at me; I'm a great steam engine. Look out; I'm speeding down the hill! Now I'm passing the lamp post. Look at that; my shadow's like a compass. It's moved all the way round and now it's in front.

  Giovanni was taking extra-long strides as he walked beneath the street lamp, when all of a sudden his classmate Zanelli came out from a dark laneway on the other side of the lamp post wearing a new shirt with a sharply pressed collar, and passed right in front of him.

  "Zanelli, are you going to float the raven gourd lanterns?" asked Giovanni, but before he could even finish, Zanelli cried out at the top of his voice:

  "Giovanni, your dad's bringing you an otter fur coat!"

  Giovanni's heart froze and his ears began to ring.

  "What?! Hey, Zanelli!" he shouted back, but Zanelli had already gone inside the house across the road with the ornamental cypress planted out front.

  "Why does Zanelli have to say stuff like that when I didn't do anything to him? He runs like a rat. The only reason he says stuff like that when I didn't do anything to him is because he's stupid."

  Giovanni's mind was racing as he passed through the beautiful streets filled with all kinds of different lanterns, and trees covered in decorations. A bright neon lamp lit up the front window of the watchmakers. Inside there was an owl that rolled its eyes of red stone for each second that passed, and on top of a thick glass disc the color of the ocean, were all kinds of jewels, slowly turning as if they were stars, while a bronze Centaur gradually approached from the other side. In the middle of the glass disc, was a black planisphere.

  Giovanni stopped and stared at the chart printed on the planisphere, becoming completely lost in thought.

  Although it was much smaller than the chart he had seen at school that afternoon, this one had an outer plate covering the star chart; and if you turned the disc to a certain date and time, the oval-shaped hole in the center of the outer plate would only reveal the stars that could be seen in the sky at that time. This chart also had a white cloudy ribbon stretching from the top all the way down to the bottom, where the Milky Way appeared all smoky. The bottom looked as if steam was rising up after a small explosion. Behind it was a small telescope mounted on a tripod, bathed in yellow light; and hanging on the back wall was a large chart of the constellations, all depicted as strange beasts and snakes and fish and bottles and all kinds of things. For several minutes Giovanni stood there daydreaming about whether the sky really was filled with scorpions and warriors, and how much he'd love to walk forever and ever through that sky.

  Suddenly he remembered he still had to get the milk for his mother and he started off again. He walked briskly through the town, his chest pumped out, his arms swinging high in front, even though it made his worn-out coat pull tight against his shoulders.

  The crystal-clear air seemed to flow down the streets and through the stores like water, and the street lights were wrapped in the lush green branches of fir and oak trees. Many of the trees, such as the six sycamore trees in front of the power company, had their branches covered by dozens and dozens of small light bulbs, and the entire scene looked as if it were from the city of mermaids.

  Wearing neatly pressed clothes, the children darted back and forth whistling the Star Safari song and shouting "Centaur! Send down your dew!" as they laughed and carried on, burning their sparklers of blue magnesium. But Giovanni's mind was in a different place to all the fun going on around him, and he walked hurriedly toward the dairy with his head hung low.

  Before long he came to a place by the edge of town where dozens upon dozens of poplar trees were floating high in the night sky. Walking through the dark entrance to the dairy, he stood in front of the dimly lit kitchen that smelled like cows, took off his cap, and called out, "Good evening!" but no sound came from inside the house and there was no sign of anyone.

  "Good evening! Excuse me!" cried Giovanni, straightening up to his full height. After several moments had passed, an old lady appeared, moving gingerly as if she were in some kind of pain. Half mumbling, she asked Giovanni what he wanted.

  "Well yes, our milk wasn't delivered today, so I've come to pick it up," said Giovanni, in a big strong voice.

  "Nobody's here now. I can't tell you anything. Come back tomorrow," she said, rubbing her red eyes as she looked down at Giovanni.

  "Yes, but Mother is sick, so I need to get her milk for her tonight."

  "Then come back in a little while," said the old lady and turned to go back into the house.

  "I see. OK then, thank you," replied Giovanni bowing his head slightly, before turning and heading back out.

  Walking through the town again, he was about to turn the corner when he caught sight of a group of six or seven school kids, black shadows and white shirts all jumbled together, whistling and laughing as they walked in front of the general store on the way to the footbridge, each one with a raven gourd lantern in their hand. Their laughter and whistling sounded familiar. They were his classmates. His heart skipped a beat and he thought about turning back, but then changed his mind, and instead strode confidently up towards them.

  "Are you going to the river?" he tried to say, but the words got caught in his throat.

  "Giovanni, your dad's bringing you an otter fur coat!" cried out Zanelli, just like before.

  "Giovanni, your dad's bringing you an otter fur coat!" parroted the others straight after.

  Giovanni's face went red and he no longer knew if he was walking or what he was doing, but as he tried to hurry past the group, he suddenly noticed Campanella in amongst them. Campanella was smiling quietly with a look of pity on his face as he watched Giovanni, half expecting him to lose his temper.

  Giovanni did his best to avoid Campanella's eyes so that he could get away from them, and as soon as he'd made it passed the tall silhouette of Campanella, the boys resumed their whistling once more. As he was about to turn the next corner, Giovanni took a quick look behind and saw Zanelli also looking back over his shoulder at Giovanni. Just then Campanella began whistling at the top of his voice, and then walked off in the opposite direction towards the shadowy figure of the footbridge.

  Overcome by a terrible feeling of loneliness, Giovanni sped off as fast as he could run. Nearby, some small children who were laughing and screaming as they played at hopping on one leg with their hands over their ears, squealed with delight when they saw Giovanni take off so fast. Giovanni raced toward the bottom of a hill that was surrounded in darkness.

  Chapter 5 - Weather Wheel Monument

  At the rear of the dairy farm was a gentle-sloping hill. Its dark, flat peak appeared lower than normal, and looked to join up with the Great Bear of the north that sat directly above it.

  Giovanni clambered up a narrow path through a small woodland, the ground covered in freshly formed dew. A single ray of white starlight lit up the path that weaved between wild grass hidden in darkness, and a thicket, where the shadows took on all kinds of shapes. Some of the leaves in the grass were lit up by tiny insects in the grass, glowing bright blue, reminding Giovanni of the raven gourd lanterns that he'd seen the others carrying before.

&nbs
p; After he passed the dark shadows from the forest of pine and oak trees, suddenly a wide open sky spread out before him, the pale Milky Way stretching right across the sky from south to north; a weather wheel monument standing all alone at the top of the hill. The ground was covered in bell flowers and wild chrysanthemums, blooming with a fragrance from out of a dream. A lone bird chirped busily as it flew over the hill.

  Giovanni reached the base of the weather wheel monument and then threw his steaming hot body into the cool grass.

  The lights of the town rose up in the darkness like those from a palace at the bottom of the ocean, and even the sound of children singing and whistling, and echoes of their screams reached as far as Giovanni's ears, if only faintly. From far in the distance came the sound of the wind, a wave rolling silently through the grass on the hill, cooling Giovanni's shirt, wet from perspiration. Giovanni looked across at the dark fields that stretched from the edge of town far into the distance.

  From there came the sound of a train. The windows of that tiny train looked so small and red, all lined up in a row. Thinking of all the travelers inside, peeling their apples, laughing or doing any number of other things made Giovanni awfully sad, and he looked up at the sky once more.

  They say that white ribbon in the sky is filled with stars.

  But no matter how long he looked up at the sky, it didn't seem cold and empty like the teacher had described it that afternoon. In fact, the more he looked, the more certain he was that he could see small woodlands, farms and fields. Then Giovanni saw the blue stars of Lyra become three and then four, twinkling busily in the sky, stretching out their leg, and drawing it back in, over and over again, before finally sticking it right out like a mushroom. And now even the town directly below appeared all hazy as if it were a massive cluster of stars, or an enormous cloud of smoke.

  Chapter 6 - Milky Way Station

  Giovanni suddenly noticed that the weather wheel monument behind him was now all mist-like and had started to take the shape of a signal tower, and for several moments it flashed on and off like a firefly. It gradually came into focus, before finally coming to a complete standstill, standing upright in the dark steel-blue field in the sky. There it stood, upright, all on its own, in the field in the sky that was like a sheet of blue steel that has just emerged from a furnace.

  Just then Giovanni heard a strange voice. "Milky Way Station, Milky Way Station," and suddenly everything was lit up as bright as if the fire from a billion firefly squid had been petrified and submerged in the sky, or as if a diamond company had been hording diamonds to stop the price from falling, and someone had suddenly tipped them all over and scattered them everywhere. It was a dazzling light and Giovanni rubbed at his eyes over and over.

  And then he realized that this small train he was riding on, had been traveling chugga-chugga, chugga-chugga, for some time already. Giovanni was in fact sitting down, staring out the window of a train carriage lined with small yellow lights, on the late-night light railway. The velvet seats in the carriage were virtually empty. Two large brass buttons sparkled on the opposite wall, coated in a gray varnish.

  Giovanni now saw that sitting in the seat facing his, was a tall boy wearing a black coat that seemed to be soaked through, and who had his head out the window looking at something outside. There was something familiar about this boy's shoulders, and Giovanni could no longer resist the urge to find out who it was. Just as he moved to stick his head out of the window too, the other boy pulled his head back in and turned to face Giovanni.

  It was Campanella.

  Giovanni was just about to say Have you been on here the whole time? when Campanella said,

  "They ran pretty hard, but they were too slow. Even Zanelli ran hard, but he couldn't catch up."

  Oh, that's right, we are supposed to be going somewhere together, thought Giovanni.

  "Shall we get off someplace and wait for the others?" he asked.

  "Zanelli's already gone home. His dad came to pick him up."

  As Campanella spoke these words his face turned pale and a pained look came over his face.

  Giovanni had a strange feeling he'd forgotten something, somewhere, and he couldn't think of anything to say.

  But after watching the scenery out the window, Campanella suddenly felt much better.

  "Oh no!" he cried out. "I forgot my water bottle. And my sketch pad. Ah, it doesn't matter. We're nearly at Swan Station. I love to watch the swans fly. I bet I can still see them even when they fly way down river."

  He then looked down at the disc-shaped map in his hands, turning it round and round. Campanella's map was marked with a single railway line that ran further and further south along the left hand bank of the Celestial River that was shown in white. But the amazing thing about this map was that the disc, which was as dark as night, had been inlaid with each of the stations, signal towers, lakes and forests, with beautiful lights of blue, orange and green. Giovanni thought there was something familiar about it.

  "Where did you buy this? It's volcanic glass, isn't it?"

  "I got it at Milky Way Station. Didn't you get one?"

  "Ah, I'm not sure I passed through Milky Way Station. Is this where we're at now?" said Giovanni pointing to the word 'Swan' written just north of a station symbol.

  "Yeah. Hey, is that the moonlight on the river bank?"

  Giovanni looked out the window to see a virtual sea of silver grass along the bank of the pale-blue shining Celestial River, the wind blowing ripples through its midst, making it rustle as it danced backwards and forwards.

  "No, that's not the moonlight. It's bright because it's the Milky Way," said Giovanni who was so happy he felt like jumping up and down. He slapped his legs and stuck his head out the window, whistling the Star Safari song as loud as he could, stretching right out so he could make out the water in the Celestial River. But at first, he couldn't see anything there, no matter how hard he stared. Then, after concentrating for some time, the beautiful water, more transparent than glass, or even hydrogen, finally came into focus, and as it flowed steadily past without sound, he thought he saw it rise up into fine purplish waves, and sparkle with the colors of the rainbow.

  The grass plains in every direction were covered in beautiful phosphorescent signal towers. The distant ones were small and the close ones big; the distant ones were orange or yellow and clearly defined, while the close ones were pale blue and slightly misty, or they were triangular or rectangular, or they were in the shape of lightning or chains; and they lit up the grass plains in a wonderful array of formations. Giovanni's heart was pounding and he shook his head wildly from side to side. As he did so, each of the blue and orange signal towers on that beautiful grass plain, flickered and shuddered as if they were breathing in sync.

  "We are really in a field in the sky. But you know, this train isn't running on coal," said Giovanni, sticking his left hand on the window frame and peering up towards the front of the train.

  "I wonder if it runs on alcohol or electricity?" said Campanella.

  The tiny majestic train traveled on endlessly, chugga-chugga, chugga-chugga, through the silver grass in the sky that rippled beneath the wind; passed the water of the Celestial River and the pale-blue whispers of light from the signal markers.

  "Look, a flowering gentian," cried Campanella, pointing out the window. "Autumn is really here now."

  In the short grass bordering the rail tracks was a spectacular purple gentian, as though it had been carved from moonstone.

  "Shall I jump out and grab it and then jump back in?" asked Giovanni, his heart racing with excitement.

  "No, it's too late. We've gone too far past," answered Campanella, but before he could finish, another brightly shining gentian flashed by.

  　 Then another and another; hundreds of yellow-bottomed gentian flower cups zipped past like a gushing spring, or a pouring rain, and the row of signal towers grew brighter and brighter, as if they were smoking or on fire.

 
Chapter 7 - The Northern Cross and Pliocene Coast

  "I wonder if mother will forgive me!" stammered Campanella suddenly all flustered.

  Ah, that's right, my mother is way down there near that tiny orange signal that is as tiny as a speck of dust, and she was thinking of me just now, thought Giovanni absent-mindedly.

  "There's nothing I wouldn't do to make Mother happy. But what could I do that would make her truly happy?" wondered Campanella, fighting back tears.

  "But your mother doesn't have it that bad, does she?" exclaimed Giovanni in surprise.

  "I don't know. But I guess for anyone, if you do something that is really good, you'll make them truly happy. So I think Mother will forgive me," said Campanella, appearing to have consoled himself.

  Suddenly the inside of the train was filled with a bright white light. Looking outside they saw water flowing without shape or sound over the glittering bed of the Celestial River that was like a mound of diamonds or dew drops on grass, or everything of real splendor; and situated in the middle of that flowing water was a single island, over which rose a misty pale-blue halo. On the island's flat peak, stood the most magnificent breathtakingly white cross, which could have been cast from a cloud from the frozen North Pole, crowned by a single golden halo, standing in silence for an eternity.

  "Hallelujah, Hallelujah!" came voices from the seats behind and in front. When the boys turned around they saw that all the other travelers were standing up straight, their clothes neatly pressed, with some holding black bibles against their breasts, and others with crystal rosary beads around their necks. Every one of them had their hands together, praying with reverence in the direction of the cross. Both boys immediately got to their feet. Campanella's cheeks had a beautiful glow; the color of a fully-ripened apple.

  The island and its cross gradually moved toward the back of the train, fading into the distance.

  A misty pale-blue glow rose from the opposite bank, its silvery color blurring each time the wind blew through the silver grass, as if it had been breathed upon. The mass of gentian flowers gave the impression of a gentle Will-o'-the-wisp as they ducked in and out of the grass.