Gabriel Jeroschewitz, December 3rd. 2025, Dedicated to and inspired by. Arthur Rimbaud
The Rose Carriage
It had been one hundred and seventy-two winters since Arthur Rimbaud was born, though in truth, for those of us who spoke about him in hushed tones over wine, the years meant little. Time — for Rimbaud — was a debtor’s illusion. His ghost roamed wherever words disobeyed their masters.
That night, I boarded the rose-colored carriage.
It was the sort of train car no railway company admits to owning. Its exterior shimmered faintly under the frost-covered lamps, a blush of pink that looked almost alive against the midnight tracks. Inside, the upholstery was an impossible shade of blue — the kind you would swear belonged in a dream, the hue that clings to a lover’s eyes just before they vanish. It smelled faintly of old paper and something more feral, something that whispered of places without maps.
She was already there.
Louise sat in the far corner, her back to the window, her gloved hands folded neatly in her lap. The overhead gaslight cut alternating shadows across her face; it made her beauty seem momentary, as though the train itself was deciding whether to keep her or let her fade into the dark world we passed through. She looked up at me when I entered, and in that look was history — not hers, not mine, but someone else’s: the history of all who had followed words into danger.
The carriage lurched forward, beginning its slow consumption of the rails.
Outside, the night compressed itself against the frosted glass. Plains, skeletal forests, and half-forgotten hamlets slid past like fleeting thoughts. Somewhere beyond the horizon, wolves howled — I could not tell if they ran ahead of us or followed.
I did not know exactly where we were going.
Louise had only said, “It’s a pilgrimage. You’ll understand when we arrive.”
Her voice carried an accent that folded Parisian elegance into something older and colder — a provincial undertone, the kind Rimbaud himself might have had before his words devoured him. She had spoken of him earlier, in the station’s café, eyes bright as if remembering a lover she’d never touched.
“We’ll see the place where he stopped writing,” she had whispered, as though even the station walls might overhear and forbid it.
Hours passed.
The rhythm of the train became a kind of breathing, a heartbeat that was not my own. Louise leaned her head against the window, eyes closed. Every so often, her lips moved — not opening, but shifting slightly, as though tasting syllables that belonged to another century.
I watched frost trace patterns across the glass. Shadows — real shadows — began to appear outside, moving against the snow as though they had weight. Some were long-limbed figures, too tall for men. Others loped on all fours, their bodies dripping darkness like tar. They were not reflections. I could see their breath clouding the night air.
For a terrible moment, I felt that if I slid the window open, they would climb inside.
Louise shivered.
Her eyes opened, and she turned toward me.
“Ignore them,” she said softly. “It’s only the nocturnal realm. He wrote about it once — before he left us.”
Her gloved hand brushed her cheek. She froze.
“Did you feel that?” she asked.
I hadn’t.
She leaned closer. I saw a red mark just below her jawline, a faint crescent, as though something small — no larger than a spider — had traced its way there while we sat.
“It kissed me,” she murmured, and smiled — not warmly, but in a way that made my skin prickle.
The shadows outside drew nearer.
The train slowed. Steam hissed from beneath us, curling into the cold air like serpents.
We arrived at a station that should not exist. There were no signs. No porters. Only a single lamp, flickering, illuminating a platform swallowed by blackness beyond its edge.
Louise stepped down from the carriage without hesitation, her boots whispering against the thin crust of snow. I followed.
“This is where he boarded his last train,” she said. “From here, he went away from poetry forever.”
Her eyes drifted toward the dark forest beyond the platform. The shadows were there too, larger now, clustering around the trees. I could hear their low growls — not animal, not wholly human.
We began to walk, leaving the station behind. The forest swallowed us.
Inside the woods, there was no wind. The air was heavy, damp with a smell that reminded me of wet ink. My boots sank slightly into the soft, yielding soil, almost alive.
Louise spoke in fragments, as if translating something invisible that passed between the branches.
“He saw wolves here — black ones. Not the kind that hunt flesh. These hunt memory. They strip you of your past, your words, your name.”
I thought I heard one behind us, pacing softly. I dared not look.
“He escaped them once,” she went on, “but in doing so, he left everything behind.”
Her voice broke off. She stopped walking.
We had reached a small clearing. In the center stood a collapsed wooden bench, half-buried under snow. On it lay a single sheet of paper, impossibly white for the grim surroundings. The ink upon it was fresh enough to glisten under the weak moon.
Louise stepped forward and lifted the page. She read aloud:
“When the beast kisses you, it takes your voice. To find it again, you must hunt it through the night.”
She folded the paper and hid it in her coat.
That was when I felt it — a tickle against my own cheek. Small, deliberate. It traced down my neck like a living thread. I slapped at it but found only air.
Louise watched me with something between pity and hunger.
“It’s chosen you,” she said.
The forest changed as we walked. The trees thinned, replaced by twisted metal poles and shards of glass that crunched underfoot. The wolves kept pace, always just beyond sight, their breath rattling the edges of my hearing.
We came upon another train — not moving, not new. Its carriages were rusted, paint flaking away to reveal bones of steel beneath. Yet one carriage stood untouched: rose-colored, upholstery the same impossible blue as before.
Louise climbed inside. I followed.
It was warm here, unnaturally so. The cushions sank deeply beneath us, swallowing our weight.
“Tonight, you’ll find the beast,” Louise said, reclining against the seat. “We’ll take our time.”
The lamp inside flickered, casting shadows across the walls that did not match our movements. The wolves’ eyes glowed in the doorway, but they did not enter.
I felt the tickle again, more insistent. It moved along my neck, across my collarbone, vanishing whenever I reached for it. My heartbeat matched the train’s slow rhythm, though the train was not moving.
“It’s not in a hurry,” she murmured. “It knows you won’t leave.”
Her hand brushed mine. It was cold.
Time seems to dissolve in places like that. I could not tell whether minutes or hours had passed before I realized the lamp had gone out, leaving only the dim reflection of moonlight on the cushions.
Louise was no longer beside me.
The tickle on my skin became a pressure — small, precise, as though teeth were testing the surface. I closed my eyes. The carriage smelled stronger now, almost suffocating, like ink and earth and something metallic.
Somewhere in the dark, a voice spoke — not hers, not mine.
“I left before I wrote the last word. You will write it for me.”
A shape moved at the far end of the carriage. Its outline was human only in the way shadows sometimes pretend to be human. It approached with soundless steps.
I felt my mouth open — to speak, to question — but no words came.
The beast had kissed me, and my voice was gone.
When the train finally moved, I did not know whether it was carrying us back to the station or deeper into the forest. The wolves followed still, their eyes twin embers in the cold. Louise sat across from me now, her gloved hands folded. She was smiling faintly.
Outside, the nocturnal realm stretched on without end.
And somewhere beyond the window, I knew Arthur Rimbaud was still walking — silent, untamed, and just out of reach.
