SMT 2025 Holiday Storyflod Part 1
As is our tradition, for this holiday season, we’ve selected a few favorite stories from the first half or so of our fourth year to share — unlocked — with readers far and wide. We had a difficult time choosing, as they’re all favorites (just like every year — we feel very grateful to all our authors for writing such spectacular stories). If you love what you’re reading, please share and recommend, and dig into the archives for more. As well, please tell us your favorites from 2025 in the comments, or by emailing morningtransportnewsletter@gmail.com
This week’s unlocked stories are A.T. Greenblatt’s “Adventures on the Omega Train at Night,” (April 2025, below), E. Catherine Tobler’s “First, Last, Oldest, True” (January 2025, linked); Eric Smith’s “That’s Our Time,” (March 2025, linked), and Stephanie Burgis’ “Mail Order Magic,” (March 2025, linked).
Enjoy them all.
~ Julian and Fran, December 21, 2025
This month’s stores began with tales by Juan Martinez and Stephanie Feldman. We hope you love these, the Storyflods, and all the stories to come in the new year — as much as we love bringing them to you on Sundays.
Bringing out great short fiction each Sunday depends on the support of our readers. Our first story each month is free. We hope that you will subscribe to receive all our stories, and support the work of our authors. If you already subscribe — thank you! Please pass on the word, or a gift subscription if you can.
Adventures on the Omega Train at Night
by A. T. Greenblatt
The thing about taking the night train was you never knew where you would end up. Estelle made that mistake once when she’d first moved to the city from her hometown, which she loved but wasn’t big enough for public transportation. Or medical specialists. Overstimulated and overwhelmed, maybe a little drunk from that fancy cocktail she got with her Latin-inspired pasta, she hadn’t checked the time when she stepped on the Epsilon line train.
It was only slightly past ten p.m., but that was late enough to find herself at a subway stop where the people were eight feet tall and ridiculously friendly. And though she was new to the city, she knew this wasn’t normal.
She never made that mistake again.
Until Hugo did.
It was a rare night out for them as a couple—some friend of a friend’s birthday, but the promise of good sushi was enough to lure Estelle out of her midwinter hibernation and justify the cost of a cab home. It was her fault, really. Throughout dinner, she wasn’t paying attention: to the conversation, to the time, to how many Sapporos Hugo drank. She blamed her hip, which hurt fiercely that evening, and the general loudness and closeness of the restaurant.
Which was why the argument they had out on the sidewalk between dinner and dessert blindsided her. As did Hugo yelling “I’m sorry! I can’t even with you anymore!” before staggering off in the direction of the subway.
Shock, which stung like ice water, was her only excuse for not following him right away. Instead she went back inside, finished Hugo’s beer, and only then thought to look at her watch.
It was 10:50 p.m.
Plenty of people navigate the night trains regularly—but you need to have the right constitution for it, a good head on your shoulders, and a firm internal compass to not get lost for days or weeks. Or sometimes, longer.
Hugo had the worst sense of direction.
“Shit!” Estelle yelled as she grabbed her coat, apologizing to friends and even more friends of friends, promising to Venmo them as she stumbled over chair legs in her hurry to escape the crowded, narrow restaurant. She limp-trotted to the subway, praying that, for once, the Omega train wasn’t on time.
Of course, it was. Hugo was nowhere to be seen.
In fact, the platform had that freshly empty look it gets when a train has departed thirty seconds earlier.
“Shit!” Estelle said again.
It took ten minutes for the next train to arrive, in which time Estelle called Hugo’s phone (straight to voicemail), texted him an apology (unread), chewed on her cuticles (a mess anyway), called again (no change), and read the Reddit page for the Omega night train (which apparently had thirty regular stops and a hundred potential unmapped ones). So by the time the train came thundering into the station, Estelle was well and truly worried she’d lost her boyfriend. This time for good.
The car was half full and, mercifully, there were seats open, and she sat down clumsily between two people in puffy coats. An announcement hissed over the loudspeaker, but the message was lost in static. For all Estelle knew, the conductor could’ve just shared the secret for happiness. The electronic displays, however, showed the normal stops on the route, and that was promising. The weekly night train editorials she and Hugo devoured in The Citygoer always stressed that sometimes the night train was just the day train at night.
So Estelle hoped as they pulled away from the station, even though things between her and Hugo weren’t amazing these days.
She decided she’d get off at every third stop between here and home to see if she could get a signal on him. If she was lucky, she wouldn’t even have to leave the station. Comforted by the plan, she leaned back and began absently rubbing her hip. Winter always made her syndrome’s symptoms worse, and before they moved, she and Hugo would spend the colder months cuddled in their massive TV room watching old movies and plotting adventures for warmer seasons. Now they barely had a living room in their apartment.
“Do you want to be healed?” said the man next to her, suddenly.
It shook Estelle out of her brooding. “Huh?”
“Do you want to be healed?”
“What?”
The man stared at her like she should’ve been expecting this conversation. “Healed.”
She realized he’d seen her limp two stops ago.
“No,” she said, and she stood, though the train was moving, wanting distance between them, but she couldn’t get far. Too many people were in the car now, and she felt his glower all the way to Biggens Street Station, where she rushed off. To her relief, he didn’t follow.
With shaking hands, she tried texting Hugo, calling, and the Find My Friends app. Nothing.
The next Omega train wouldn’t arrive for another twenty-five minutes. Swearing, Estelle went hunting for a bench.
Why don’t you ever say anything back? Hugo would ask her when these things happened.
Can’t think of anything fast enough, she’d reply.
“Fuck you” works in a pinch.
Says the six-foot-tall rock-climber dude.
Still, he’d say, and the conversation would remain unresolved. It was one of their many circular arguments.
Estelle paced the length of the platform, but there were no clean benches to be found. So she resigned herself to waiting on her cranky feet. She resolved that she’d only check her phone once every two minutes and set a timer. She imagined the story she’d regale her coworkers with tomorrow, who teased her for being the only data scientist in their department who was a fully committed hermit.
Waiting was agony, though. Estelle made herself study the mosaic mural on the station walls—birds in a jungle, bright feathers among deep green tile foliage. It was actually quite beautiful, and despite coming to this station semi-regularly, Estelle had never appreciated it before.
A motion and a flash of color caught her eye. One of the mosaic birds was moving.
It was a small yellow thing and it zipped back and forth, trapped on the plane of the wall. Estelle watched open-mouthed as it flew, causing the mosaic leaves to sway. It paused on a branch within the mural and gave her a pointed look. Then it went flying up the wall to the level above.
Estelle hurried to follow. And you thought the city destroyed my sense of adventure, she thought to Hugo as she ascended the stairs.
Biggens Street was one of those subway stops that could’ve housed a small village in its maze of underground tunnels. And tonight, the village had arrived.
The hallways were filled with people, and at first all Estelle saw was color and movement. Then her eyes focused and, to her amazement, most of the crowd consisted of people covered in feathers. Hawkers stood behind folding tables, shouting words and strange songs, trying to outshine each other. But it was the smell that caught her attention, something ripe and sweet, making her mouth water, though she’d just eaten half her weight in sushi less than an hour before. Hugo would love this, she thought. Without realizing it, Estelle took a step forward.
And got taken up by the crowd.
She stumbled against the crush of bodies, the fast walkers and the ambling ones who stopped suddenly. There were no pauses or openings—she needed to keep moving to stay upright, though her hip had strong opinions about it.
Why don’t you want to go? Hugo had said outside the restaurant a mere hour ago. Your friends are practically giving us front-row seats to our favorite band!
This is why, she thought as she wrestled herself free from the crowd. I hate this.
She leaned against a grimy tiled wall, catching her breath. Behind her left shoulder, she felt tiles shift, and when she turned, the yellow mosaic bird was perched there. It cocked its head and alit. And Estelle, who once loved adventures, followed.
It led her to a quiet corner where a vendor was selling jewelry. Her feathers were the muted browns of a female cardinal except for the ones on her head, which were a vibrant red.
“Haven’t seen you here before,” the feather woman said. Her voice was warm and friendly.
“No,” Estelle confessed. “First time.”
“Ah, so you’re one of those. Erik tells me I have something you could use.”
Estelle blinked. “Who’s Erik?”
The vendor pointed a long feathered finger at the yellow bird on the wall behind her. “He’s usually right, too.”
This was too weird. Estelle began to back away. “Sorry—”
“Don’t believe me?” The vendor selected a pair of intricately beaded bracelets from her wares. “These are a mated set. The wearers can always find their way back to each other if they want to. Useful, yes?”
“How . . . ?” said Estelle, glancing between the vendor and Erik, who puffed out his chest, clearly pleased with himself. The Citygoer editorials said plenty about night train escapades, but never mentioned mind readers.
The feather woman laughed. “Typecasting. There are regulars and then there are tourists. You’re a tourist, but you don’t look like you’re here for thrills.”
“No,” admitted Estelle. She picked up the bracelets. Their colorful stone beads were cool and comforting. “How much?”
The vendor reached under her table, and when she opened her downy palm, there sat a pair of small azure earrings. “Wear these the next time you’re under a wide-open sky. No offense, but you seem like a country girl at heart.”
Estelle sighed. The vendor wasn’t wrong.
“What do they do?”
“To you? Nothing. But for me, I’ll see what you see and I do miss open spaces. We didn’t always live in these tunnels at night, you know. Before this, there was only underbrush and clouds.”
“I didn’t know,” said Estelle, accepting the earrings.
“I hope you find them,” said the vendor. “Whoever they are.”
“Thanks,” replied Estelle. “I don’t know when we’ll visit home again.” The woes of well-paying city jobs, she would quip to Hugo. Money rich, time poor. “But hopefully I can help soon.”
“Oh, I think so,” said the feathered woman. There was something knowing in her smile.
Unnerved, Estelle thanked her again and hurried away. This time, Erik didn’t follow.
She arrived on the platform exactly thirty seconds before the train did. A horde of people waited to board, and though the cars were already full, that didn’t deter anyone, and Estelle found herself crushed up against strangers with their baggy coats and strong perfumes, all trying to obey the unspoken rule of no eye contact.
One stop in, between stations, the conductor came on the speakers. This time the announcement was clear. “This train will be going express to the end of the line. Passengers whose stops have been skipped can take the Omega line back toward center city at Seaside Station.”
The groans, laments, and beautifully precise swears were earsplitting as the train sped through station after station. Estelle could only see a sliver of the window from where she stood, trapped, but instead of a city made of concrete and steel, she caught glimpses of paper and alligator skin. A silhouette of another metropolis that was unsettling and alluring.
No wonder people get lost on the night train for weeks, she thought, and wondered if, tonight, she’d become one of them.
When the train finally stopped, there was a mad push, a fresh stream of curses, and a breath of relief as people flooded out of the car and toward the stairs. Of course, this was a station where, to get to the opposite platform, you needed to walk up, cross the street, and come back down again. Naturally, you had to pay the fare again.
Estelle didn’t bother fighting the crowds. Instead she waited for the mob to clear, checking her phone for life signs of Hugo (still nothing), before heading to the exit.
From the other direction, a woman and a young girl in pigtails walked toward her. “But why, Mom?” the girl kept asking every time the woman answered a question.
Then, without warning, the girl stepped into Estelle’s path. “Why do you walk so funny?” she demanded.
“Macy!” the woman exclaimed. Then she was silent.
Estelle’s gaze flicked between the kid and the mother. Really? Nothing? The mother wouldn’t meet her gaze.
She considered Hugo’s Fuck you line. But the kid looked about eight.
So Estelle sighed and kept moving forward.
Her new plan was to get to the opposite platform and pray that the next train would take her where she wanted to go. It was nearly one a.m. and Hugo had been missing for almost two hours. But as she emerged from the subway, she heard wind moving through branches and tall grass, and her breath caught.
Seaside Station, like the name suggested, was near the ocean. Estelle and Hugo had come on a lark once and weren’t impressed with the overpriced fair food and the plastic, sun-bleached summer getaway facade. But tonight there were no cheap-thrills stalls or screaming kids or cracked fairy lights. Estelle found herself in a meadow surrounded by tall trees, with only the faintest whiff of seawater, the city skyline glinting in the distance. The sudden hush and emptiness nearly brought Estelle to tears.
On the last night in their hometown, she and Hugo had sat on the roof of their house and looked up at the dark sky. It was cloudy, but it didn’t matter. She savored the quietude and the untainted air, the sound of the breeze playing with the elms on the property. Things that she was going to miss most.
Our greatest adventure yet, she said.
We’ll be back soon, replied Hugo.
But between his work and hers, in the two years since they’d moved to the city, they had only managed to visit home a handful of times.
She checked her phone again. Nothing from Hugo. But for the first time since this terrible night began, Estelle wasn’t worried.
I could just stay here, she thought, and it wasn’t a fleeting idea. She and Hugo had moved to this city for better jobs and better health care, but though they shared meals and an apartment, these days it felt like they lived in two different versions of the same place. He still went on adventures, while her outings felt more like navigating an obstacle course.
Beyond the towering trees there were stars. It’d been months since she’d seen those, and in a moment of remembering, she pulled out the azure earrings and sat down amid the grass. The cold ground did nothing good to her aching body, but god, her soul needed this.
So this is how you get lost on the night train, she thought, and inhaled the clear air.
Eventually her hip refused to be ignored and she recalled a line in the latest column in The Citygoer.
“The realms of the night train are slippery things. You may disappear for a day, a week, or a year. But you will come back eventually, and your old life will fit like an old pair of pants. It won’t have changed, but you will. Like how the unmapped stops on the train are always changing.”
Reluctantly, she stood. She wasn’t sure if she was ready to desert her life yet and it didn’t seem fair to abandon Hugo to that fate either, though living here had already changed them. Slowly, stiffly, she went back down to the platform.
Fortunately the next train to center city was mostly empty, and those who were on it looked even more weary than she felt.
The ride home was long and quiet.
Then, one stop away, the Find My Friends app pinged with a notification and, with swiftness that she thought her tired body incapable of, she got off the train seconds before the doors closed.
Her hands shook as she opened the app. Hugo was only three blocks away.
Of course, this was the station with steep steps to street level and no elevator. Sighing, she took them slow and steady, daring to hope again.
“You can do it!” said someone coming down the stairs. Like they were shouting encouragement to a toddler.
Estelle stopped, glared. “Really?” she said. The person reddened, stammered something unintelligible. She continued to stare them down until they disappeared from view.
I did it, Hugo, she thought as she climbed again.
At this point, she was half convinced that nothing could surprise her anymore, but of course, she was wrong. When she finally emerged, she blinked hard. Ferry’s Point was a neighborhood she’d walk around sometimes, in better weather and on better body days, being the type of place that housed auto repair shops and funky breweries and weird makerspaces. It was where she and Hugo and friends would come when they wanted to eat somewhere with space between the tables. It wasn’t exactly beautiful, but it was fun.
The Ferry’s Point before Estelle now, however, was awash with light and street art. Complicated-shaped paper lanterns hung where the light posts should have been, and outside storefronts, moving between the illuminated patches and the dark parts, chameleon people walked the sidewalks. Their scales shimmered under the lanterns, their footfalls unnaturally loud.
In the distance, Estelle heard music and joyous voices. It came from the same direction that she was headed.
She kept her pace slow, both to avoid running into the chameleon people, who all seemed to know each other, and to marvel at the vast and intricate murals on the building walls. How different this neighborhood looked tonight, like it had exchanged its typical street wear for a ball gown.
When she finally reached River Ave., a wide road on a block that had a bakehouse on one side and a metal shop on the other, the music was unavoidable. It was rhythmic and flirty, and the smell of roasted corn and sweet potatoes, barbecued meats, and warm bread made her hungry all over again.
There were hundreds of people on this block, half of them scaled, webbed-handed, and changing colors. And there, in the middle of it all, was Hugo.
It would have been so easy for Estelle to join, but the previous stops had made her cautious and she backed up. She bumped into someone.
They gave a soft Oh in surprise.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, turning.
“That’s quite all right,” said a chameleon person. They had soft white peach fuzz hair, but the scales on their face and arms were transmuting to match the bakehouse backdrop. “Happens all the time.”
“Hate it when it happens to me.”
“Part of city living,” they replied with a shrug. “It’s a beautiful place, though, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” Under the lanterns, the chameleon people glimmered, every movement sending a ripple on the pavement, like so many waves on a shore.
“This isn’t too far from where I live,” Estelle said. “Actually, I walk here sometimes. Why haven’t I seen you guys before?”
“We were always here; you just have to know how to look.”
She supposed that was true. Because here was Hugo laughing, the stress and exhaustion gone from his face. He always loved being around people, in a way that she never understood. It had been a long time since she’d seen him look this happy.
“Yeah,” she said, and with a deep sadness, moved toward him.
He was so entranced in his conversation, he didn’t even notice when Estelle slipped the beaded bracelet around his wrist. But she wasn’t sure if he was lost anymore.
“It’s up to you,” she whispered, and turned away.
She took a cab home and for the entire ten-minute ride, she kept her gaze fixed on her hands in her lap, determined not to see if the city outside was the one she knew in daylight or this entirely unknown creature.
When she arrived at her apartment building, she didn’t go in. Instead she sat on the stoop and studied her surroundings.
There was nothing out of the ordinary, no strange sheen or unfamiliar people. In fact, the block was empty and there wasn’t a single light on in the surrounding apartments. But then again, it was three a.m. and this neighborhood liked to be in bed before midnight.
So, in the silence of that familiar place, Estelle closed her eyes and breathed in the cold, cold air until the urge to cry passed.
She sat there for some time.
“Hey,” said a known voice.
Estelle opened her eyes to find Hugo standing there windswept, wide-eyed, and flushed. “That,” he said, “was crazy.”
“Yeah.”
“I got lost somewhere where people climbed the walls like insects and they were kind of mean if you couldn’t,” he said as he sat down beside her. “I can see why you hate going out.”
“I can see why you like it.” He couldn’t quite hide his surprise and Estelle almost smiled. “I miss our adventures, Hugo. The ones we used to have back home.”
“I miss home sometimes,” he replied. “A lot. I know we probably made the right choice moving here, but it did something to us.”
“Yeah.”
They sat there, on the freezing stoop steps, hovering between gratification and regret, the choice of whether to stay together or learn how to say goodbye. Until Estelle said: “What if we took the night train sometimes?” Hugo blinked, shocked, but Estelle pressed on. “There was this place at the end of the Omega line. It’s not quite home, but I think it’s worth trying to find again.”
“It’ll be a pain in the ass,” Hugo replied cautiously. Though he looked at her when he said, “But yeah, I think we should try.”
“Okay,” she said, and stood up, this time bringing Hugo with her.
#
Thank you for joining our journey this week.
A.T. Greenblatt is a Nebula Award–winning writer and mechanical engineer. She lives in New York City, where she’s known to frequently subject her friends to various cooking and home brewing experiments. Her work has been nominated for Hugo, Locus, World Fantasy, and Sturgeon Awards; has been in multiple Year’s Best anthologies; and has appeared in Reactor, Uncanny, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Nightmare, and Clarkesworld, as well as other fine publications. You can find her online at http://atgreenblatt.com and on Bluesky at @AtGreenblatt.
“Adventures on the Omega Train at Night,” © A.T. Greenblatt, 2025.
Thank you for reading The Sunday Morning Transport.
This post is public so feel free to share it.
 | A guest post by
|