A flickering, fractured vision

Here is the fifth of 25 stained glass window designs on the Palace Pier which AI and I are using as inspiration for some of these BrightonBeach365 daily posts - see Stained glass window 1 for background. This image conjures up an age gone past, the age of steam. A train - with its various components rendered in different colours of glass - is pulling into the station. In the background, the upper portion of the window features a light blue sky with curved lines suggesting the roof structure of a train station. Below, are depictions of passengers in red standing on a platform.

A limerick starter

A steam train set off with delight,

Through glass, it gleamed bold in the light.

Past the sea’s rolling tide,

On the pier it would glide,

Bringing dreams of adventure in sight.

A flickering, fractured vision (in the style of William Gibson)

The station was empty when Daniel arrived, the faded hum of its electric lights stuttering like an old circuit board. The Comet sat there, the blackened metal of her boiler catching what little light filtered through the stained-glass window - a relic, buried beneath years of rust, forgotten by time.

But time, like anything else, had its own rules. And those rules didn’t apply here.

Daniel had seen the way the glass glowed, each shard a window into another world - a flickering, fractured vision of something long past, but present. He could almost hear the hum of the engine in the glass, its rhythm in sync with the pulse of the station’s ancient electrical grid. He’d watched it so many times, but tonight, something in the light made him uneasy. Something - darker.

Then the glass moved.

The first tremor was almost imperceptible, a shiver of static in the air. Then, with the kind of impossible grace that only something broken could possess, the Comet stirred. Steel shrieked, pistons groaned, steam bellowed. For a moment, the whole place seemed to be held in stasis, frozen in the glowing prism of colour.

Daniel’s hand slid to the lever at his side, automatic, muscle memory. But he didn’t move. The engine - silent, dark, lost to a world that had moved past it - woke.

It rolled forward, a ghost from another time, its brass a muted reflection in the cracked glass of the window.

‘No way,’ Daniel muttered, his voice barely a whisper, swallowed by the hum of the rails beneath. The machine moved - slow at first, hesitant, like it wasn’t sure if it belonged to this world anymore. It shouldn’t have been possible, not in the way it was happening.

The station, with its peeling paint and a forgotten sense of grandeur, blinked as the Comet began its descent down the hill. Gathering speed, the sound of the train’s wheels clattered against old tracks, and rages of steam left a confusion of fog in its wake.

There was a glitch in reality somewhere, and for a second, it felt like the whole world was briefly on standby. The Comet wasn’t supposed to be here - not now, not like this.

It was onto Volk’s Electric Railway before anyone could blink. The narrow-gauge tracks, once built for something smaller, were too fragile to support a full-sized engine. But the Comet wasn’t following the rules. The metal of the rails rippled under its weight as though it too was caught in the glitch.

The train sped down Madeira Drive, steam boiling and the sea churning, as the city passed in flashes. For an instant, the rails crackled - unused electricity - life syncing with the pulse of the past. The engine moved on its own terms, like it always had, like it was never going to stop. The whistle tore through the air.

Daniel ran to catch up, his feet pounding the pavement, but the streets were foreign, faster than he remembered. The flicker of neon signs bled into the fog, the city bleeding out from the station’s forgotten corners. He didn’t know whether to follow or to let it go.

At Black Rock, the Comet slowed, the city finally catching up with itself. The engine sat, quivering, waiting for something Daniel wasn’t sure he was ready to see.

He placed a hand on cool metal, tracing the edges of something once forgotten. He expected to feel the weight of something unshakable, a solid connection to an age gone by, but instead, it was like touching something that had always been here, in the air, the wires, the hum of a signal.

A fraction of a second later, the Comet vanished. The rails, still warm, were silent.

By morning, it was as though it had never been. The station sat in its quiet decay, the stained-glass window intact, but something was different. Daniel stood in front of it, the edges of the glass still rippling as if caught in some loop. The faintest trace of steam lingered in the air.

He knew better than to question it. Time bent here, had always bent. Maybe it was the glass, maybe it was the wires, but the Comet wasn’t finished. Not by a long shot.