The Last Train to Kurohana - By Kelly Barrett
Written By: Kelly Barrett
Category: Short story
Competition: Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026
In the Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026, Kelly Barrett brings forth a mesmerizing short story titled "The Last Train to Kurohana." This narrative invites readers into a world where the boundaries of time and place blur, reflecting on themes of memory, legacy, and self-discovery. As part of this year's competition, Barrett's work stands out in the short story category, offering a poignant exploration of a journey that intertwines the past and present in the mysterious setting of Kurohana.
About the Work
"The Last Train to Kurohana" weaves a tapestry of evocative imagery and introspective dialogue, capturing the essence of a journey both literal and metaphorical. Barrett's narrative style is rich with atmospheric detail, enveloping the reader in a village shrouded in mystery and nostalgia. The story's haunting mood is enhanced by the enchanting descriptions of snow-covered landscapes and the ethereal presence of ghostly trains, all serving as a backdrop to a deeper exploration of family ties and forgotten memories.
The Last Train to Kurohana
Original Submission by Kelly Barrett
THE LAST TRAIN TO KU ROHANA
A short story
Kelly Barrett
Mei saw the first house between the cedar trees, its roof black with rain, its windows unlit. Then another. A stone wall. A narrow bridge crossing a stream swollen by the thaw. Beyond it, the roofs gathered closely together until the road became a street, and the street be
came Kurohana.
There was no sign announcing the village. Only a vending machine humming beneath a corrugated awning, its rows of drinks glowing in the blue dusk.
Mei stopped beside it. Her phone had lost its signal twenty minutes earlier.
She checked the time. 8:47.
The last train was due at 8:32.
She laughed. It was not a happy sound.
Eleven days in Japan and she had managed not to miss a single train. She had been early for everything.
Early for the Shinkansen from Tokyo. Early for the bus in Nagano. Early for the ferry. Early even for the appointment at the tiny travel office where a woman with perfect eyebrows had looked at Mei's handwritten note and told her, gently, that there was no Kuro
hana on any current railway map.
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Yet here she was. Kurohana.
Mei took the postcard from her coat pocket. She had worn a small hole into one corner by carrying it around. The photograph showed the railway station in winter.
Snow on the platform. Snow on the roofs. Red lanterns hanging from the eaves.
A train waiting beneath the mountains. On the back, in her grand mother's handwriting:
I was here once.
Four words. No date. No explanation.
Her mother had said it was probably nothing. Her grandmother had written things like that.
She had written on the backs of receipts and inside old books. She had left notes in coat pockets.
• Buy milk.
• Don't forget your umbrella.
• Some places remember you.
That last one had always annoyed Mei.
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Her grandmother had been the sort of woman who made ordinary sentences sound like warnings. She died in April. Three weeks later, Mei found the postcard. Now she was standing in the village her grandmother had supposedly visited nearly thirty years earlier.
The railway station was at the far end of the road. Mei pulled her suitcase behind her. The wheels rattled over the stones.
It had begun to rain again. Not properly. Just a fine mist that settled on her eyelashes and made the world beyond the streetlamps appear blurred. She thought of turning back. Then she thought of her grandmother. And kept walking.
The station was smaller than it looked in the photograph.
One platform. One track. A wooden building with a green roof. There was no ticket barrier. No electronic display. A timetable hung behind glass. Mei stepped closer. The last train had departed at 8:32. She looked at her watch. 8:51. She sighed.
Behind the ticket window sat an elderly man in a railway uniform. He was reading a newspaper. Mei knocked on the glass. He looked up.
“You missed it.”
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“Yes.”
“By nineteen minutes.”
“I know.”
“You were running.”
“I was.”
“You should have run faster.” Mei stared at him. He returned to his newspaper. For some reason, this made her smile
“Is there another train?”
“No.”
“Bus?”
“No.”
“Taxi?”
The man glanced towards the dark village. “There are no taxis.” “Hotel?”
“Two.”
“Are they open?”
“No.”
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Mei closed her eyes. The man folded his newspaper. “You can sleep here.”
“Is that allowed?”
“No.”
He pointed beneath the timetable. A large orange cat was asleep on the bench. “Neither is he.”
The cat opened one eye. Mei looked at it. It looked back. “Does he work here?” in a joking manner.
“No.” was all she got.
“Then why is he allowed to sleep there?” Mei said out loud. The stationmaster shrugged. “He's been here longer than I have.” Mei sat down defeated.
The cat shifted, making room for her. She placed her suitcase be tween her feet. For a while, neither of them spoke. Outside, the rain stopped. The silence that followed seemed enormous. Mei had lived most of her adult life surrounded by noise. Traffic, phones, neigh bours, air conditioners, lifts, notifications. Even at night, the city had always been doing something.
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Here there was only the sound of the fluorescent light. A faint tick ing clock. The breathing of a cat. Mei took out her phone. No signal. She put it away.
“You're looking for your grandmother,” the stationmaster said. Mei looked at him. “How do you know?”
“You have her photograph.”
“It isn't a photograph.”
He looked towards the postcard. “You're right.”
Mei touched it with her thumb. “She came here.”
“Perhaps.”
“Do you remember her?”
The stationmaster considered this. “People come through.” “That isn't what I asked.”
“I know.”
His eyes moved towards the tracks. “Some people are easier to re member than others.”
Mei waited. He said nothing more. She wanted to ask him what that meant. Instead, she said, “She disappeared once.”
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The stationmaster looked at her.
“My grandmother.”
“I know.”
“She left my mother when she was twenty-six.”
“That's young.”
“She was gone for six months.”
“And then?”
“She came back.”
“Did she say where she'd been?”
“No.”
“What did she say?”
Mei smiled despite herself. “Nothing useful.”
The stationmaster nodded. “Families are very good at that.”
The clock clicked forward. 8:58. Then the station lights flickered. The cat woke. Its ears turned towards the track. Mei heard some thing.
At first, she thought it was wind. Then came a bell. One clear note. The stationmaster stood. Another bell. Closer. Mei followed him
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onto the platform. The track disappeared into the forest. Between the cedar trunks, a light appeared. Then another.
The train emerged slowly from the darkness. It was an old train. Not old in the nostalgic sense of something preserved in a museum, but old in the way abandoned houses are old: beautiful because nobody had remembered to make them ugly.
Dark green carriages. Brass handles. Rounded windows glowing with amber light. Steam curled along the track. There was no time table for it. No sound of an engine. It simply arrived.
Mei turned to the stationmaster. “You said there wasn't another train.”
“There isn't.”
“Then what is that?”
He held out a ticket. She hadn't seen him print it. Her name was written across the front.
MEI
Nothing else. “Where does it go?”
He looked at her. “You know.”
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“No, I don't.”
He smiled sadly. “That is why you're here.”
The doors opened.
Mei heard music somewhere inside. A piano, perhaps. Something slow and distant. She looked at the empty track behind her. Then at the train.
The stationmaster said, “If you get on, don't ask the conductor where you're going.”
“Why?”
“He doesn't like being asked.”
“That is a ridiculous thing to say.”
“Yes.”
Mei stepped aboard. The doors closed behind her.
The carriage smelled of warm wood and rain. There were seven pas sengers. An old woman asleep beneath the window. A businessman with his tie loosened. A young couple who sat apart, looking at op posite sides of the carriage. A woman in a red coat.
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A boy of perhaps eight. And a man in a grey suit who stared at Mei as though he had been expecting her. She sat opposite the boy. He was eating a rice cracker. After a moment he offered her one.
“No, thank you.”
“You look frightened.”
“I'm not.” He considered her.
“You're bad at lying.” Mei smiled.
“What's your name?”
“Ren.”
“How old are you?”
“Eight.”
“Where are you going?”
“Kurohana.”
Mei laughed. “That can't be right.”
He shrugged. “That's where everyone goes.”
The train slipped into the darkness. Mei looked at her ticket. Some thing had appeared beneath her name. A date. 17 March 1998. She stopped breathing. The boy watched her.
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“You know that date?”
“Yes.”
“Is it important?”
“My grandmother left home that day.”
“Did she come back?”
“Yes.”
“Then it wasn't that bad.”
Mei looked at him. “She was different when she came back.” “How?”
“She stopped talking about the future.”
The boy thought about this. “Maybe she had already seen it.” Mei looked towards the window, not paying attention to his words.
The darkness outside had changed. Snow was falling. Not through the glass. Beyond it. Thick, silent snow. A village appeared beneath the moon. Mei pressed her forehead to the window. Red lanterns. Wooden houses. A shrine. A frozen river.
The railway platform. And a woman standing beneath a lantern. Her grandmother. Young. Twenty-six years old. Mei knew her face im mediately. Not because of photographs. Because of the small things.
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The way she stood with her weight on one leg. The slight tilt of her head. The hand tucked into her coat sleeve. The red scarf. Her grandmother had worn that scarf until the winter she died.
Mei's fingers tightened around the ticket.
The train stopped. The doors opened. Cold air entered the carriage.
Nobody moved. Mei stood. The woman in the red coat caught her eye.
“Don't stay too long.”
“How long is too long?”
The woman smiled. “You'll know.”
Mei stepped onto the platform.
Her grandmother was waiting. “You're late,” she said. Mei couldn't answer.
Her grandmother laughed softly. “You always were.” Mei walked towards her.
There were a thousand things she wanted to say. None of them came.
Her grandmother reached up and touched her cheek.
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“You have your mother's eyes.”
“You knew I'd come.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I was you.”
Mei frowned.
Her grandmother smiled. “Not yet.”
The village was quiet. Smoke rose from chimneys. Somewhere a bell moved in the wind.
“You left,” Mei said.
“Yes.”
“You hurt Mum.”
“I know.”
“She thought you didn't love her.”
“I know.”
“Why didn't you tell her where you were?”
Her grandmother looked towards the mountains.
“Because I thought I had more time.”
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“You had six months.”
“I had less than that.”
Mei understood.
The cold seemed to enter her coat.
“You were sick.”
Her grandmother didn't answer.
“You were dying.”
“I was frightened.”
“So you left.”
“Yes.”
“To come here?”
“To disappear somewhere nobody could follow.” Mei stared at her. “That was cruel.”
“Yes.”
The answer came without defence. That hurt more than an excuse would have. Her grandmother sat on the shrine steps. Mei sat beside her.
For a while they watched the snow.
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“I thought you were brave,” Mei said. Her grandmother laughed. “No.”
“You always seemed brave.”
“That is different.”
“What is?”
“Looking brave.” Mei looked at her.
Her grandmother rubbed her hands together.
“When you're young, you think courage is knowing what to do.” “And it isn't?”
“No.” She smiled.
“Sometimes courage is doing the thing you don't know how to do.”
The train bell sounded in the distance. Mei felt something inside her tighten.
“Can I stay?”
Her grandmother shook her head. “No.”
“Why?”
“Because you have a life.”
“I don't want the life I have.”
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“You don't know that.”
“I hate my job.”
“I know.”
“I don't know if I love the person I'm with.”
“I know.”
“I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing.”
Her grandmother looked at her. “You sound like me.” Mei laughed through her tears. “That isn't comforting.” “It wasn't meant to be.”
The train bell sounded again. Closer. Her grandmother stood. “You have to go.”
Mei didn't move. “I only just found you.”
Her grandmother held out her hand. “You didn't find me.” “What?”
“I've been waiting.”
The words broke something open in Mei. She stood and embraced her grandmother. For a moment, she was a child again. She could smell lavender. Her grandmother's wool cardigan.
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The faint sweetness of tea. The warmth of a kitchen in winter. A hand moving slowly over her hair.
“I missed you,” Mei whispered.
Her grandmother held her tighter. “I know.”
“I wasn't ready.”
“Neither was I.”
The train waited. Mei pulled away.
“Will I remember this?”
Her grandmother smiled. “You'll remember what you need.” “And the rest?”
“The rest belongs to the snow.”
Mei laughed. “That doesn't make any sense.”
“Good.” Her grandmother kissed her forehead.
“Some things shouldn't.”
Mei walked back towards the train.
At the bottom of the steps, she turned. Her grandmother stood be neath the red lantern. For a moment, Mei thought she saw someone
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beside her. A little girl. Eight years old. Red sweater. Rice cracker in her hand.
Then the train doors closed. The village disappeared. The snow dis appeared. The dark returned. When Mei opened her eyes, she was sitting on the station bench.
The clock read 9:17.
The orange cat was asleep beside her. The stationmaster was behind the ticket window.
She stood.
“How long?”
“Fourteen minutes.”
Mei looked towards the track.
Nothing.
No train.
No steam.
No footprints in the snow.
She looked at her ticket. It was blank.
“You knew.” The stationmaster nodded.
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“You've been before.”
“No.” He smiled.
“Not you.” Mei looked at the postcard in her hand. The photograph had changed.
She knew it had. She was certain.
The village was still there. The lanterns. The snow. The mountains.
But now, standing beneath one of the lanterns, was a young woman. Her grandmother. Beside her stood a little girl. Eight years old. She was wearing a red sweater. She was holding a rice cracker. Her face was turned away from the camera. But Mei knew the shape of her. The tilt of her head. The way she stood. She turned the postcard over.
There were no longer just four words. Now three new words has appeared.
I was here once.
Below them, in handwriting Mei had never seen before, someone had added:
So were you.
She looked at the stationmaster.
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“Who wrote that?”
He didn't answer.
Outside, snow began to fall. Mei picked up her suitcase. At the door she stopped. “Does the train come every night?”
“No.”
“When does it come?”
“When someone needs it.”
“And if someone doesn't?”
The stationmaster smiled. “Then they take the ordinary train.” Mei stepped outside.
The cold was clean against her face. She walked down the road with out looking back. At the end of the village she stopped beside the vending machine. Her phone suddenly found a signal. Messages ar rived all at once. Work. Her mother. A friend. The man she had been avoiding. The ordinary machinery of her life beginning again. Mei looked at them. Then she put the phone away.
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She stood beneath the cedar trees for a while. Snow fell through the branches. Somewhere behind her, faint and almost too far away to hear, a train bell sounded.
Once.
Mei closed her eyes. She did not turn around.
There were things she had spent years believing she had lost. Her grandmother. Her childhood. The version of herself who had once believed that every road led somewhere certain. But perhaps noth ing was ever entirely lost.
Perhaps some things simply waited.
In another season.
In another place.
On a platform that did not appear on any map.
Mei opened her eyes.
The road ahead was dark. She began walking. And for once, she did not need to know where it ended.
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Word count: 2506
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About the Competition
The Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026 by Hashtag Kalakar is a prestigious platform for writers worldwide to showcase their literary talents. This annual competition celebrates creativity across various categories, including poetry, short stories, and essays. It offers writers the opportunity to present their work to a diverse audience, fostering a global community of literary enthusiasts and storytellers.
We extend our gratitude to Kelly Barrett for sharing "The Last Train to Kurohana" with us in the Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026. Her evocative narrative invites readers into a world of mystery and introspection, leaving a lasting impression. Thank you, Kelly, for your contribution to this year's competition.
About Hashtag Kalakar
Hashtag Kalakar is a creative platform dedicated to providing artists, writers, singers and other creative talents with opportunities to showcase their work and reach wider audiences through competitions, features and creative initiatives.
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