It’s a radiant spring morning. The air is crisp, almost sharp, but sunlight spills across the platform of the small station perched like a balcony over the Vaud Jura, like a canvas painted in soft greens and azure skies. I stand there, on the edge of a new chapter, ready to leave my childhood village for Lucerne. My heart gently sways: there is deep love for my region and my family, a tender nostalgia for the roots that shaped me, and that vibrant spark of excitement for the adventure ahead.
My brother and sister have come to see me off. They hand me a gift—a treasure filled with meaning. My brother, a talented watchmaker, restored an old watch for me, offered like a piece of the past brought back to life. My sister had discovered it, forgotten, in a dusty corner of our father’s workshop—a passionate blacksmith whose hands breathed life into metal. The moment she touched it, she felt a peculiar energy, as if the watch held a dormant story within. Together, they brought it back to life, polishing every detail with care to make it a symbol: a reminder of my origins, an invitation to return, from time to time, to where it all began.
Engraved on its case, a delicate little dragon curls around a gear, its curves evoking a timeless guardian. This watch is not just an object that measures seconds; it embodies my dreams, my roots, everything I carry in my soul. The dragon, above all, is a familiar presence—a quiet companion who seems to have watched over me always.
I place my suitcase on a seat in the empty train carriage, holding my music box close to me, my camera slung over my shoulder, the watch hanging like a pendant around my neck. I settle into the old carriage, rarely used nowadays, but which, by chance, was exceptionally in service that day to connect my village to the large station down in the plain.
The worn wood of the benches and the scent of aged iron fill the air with a gentle melancholy. Through the window, I capture one last image of the Jura. A ray of sunlight pierces through the branches of a fir tree, and in the viewfinder of my camera, a golden glow—almost unreal—appears, where nothing was visible to the naked eye. My gaze has always caught what others don’t see, a sensitivity I share with my sister, who, too, seems touched by inexplicable gifts. As she hugged me before my departure, she whispered, “This watch will take you much farther than you can imagine.”
I smile, heart light, ready to dive into the unknown.
The train shudders to life, and the steady ticking of the watch blends with the rumble of the wheels on the tracks, like a mechanical heartbeat. This old train sings its own refrain, a ta-dam, ta-dam, born from the gaps between the sections of rail. At each joint, the wheels strike, creating a living rhythm, a melody of steel that gently rocks the thoughts. The carriage sways softly from left to right, like a soothing dance that invites dreams or stirs memories.
This sound, this motion—it’s more than just a journey; it’s a fragment of eternity etched into the soul. Modern trains glide in silence today, but that ta-dam, ta-dam still echoes within me, a memory of a time when every journey carried a story.
In this moving cocoon, lulled by the song of the rails, I think back to my village. Its quiet lanes, its whispers carried by the wind, its simple yet profound traditions wove peaceful days, like a soft, familiar fabric.
I had never meant to leave—one should never say never!
Those mountains, those fir trees, those moments when time seemed to stand still—they held me, anchored in my heart. But life, like this train, has its own plans, its own destinations. And as the landscape scrolls by, I feel that this departure is not an end, but a promise: the promise to carry my village with me, in the watch that beats against my chest, in every image stolen from reality, in the far-off places I have yet to dream into being.
