A Transference Day Anniversary
At this hour, 3:56am, Anchor Rock is a cosy place when seen from above. There are no clouds high above, open night stretching into forever above the peaks to give the valleys below a perfect view of the starry sky. A nightingale – early bird in every sense of the term – and its bright, buoyant song are the only real sound to break the softness of the air.
Despite the time, there is a gathering of lights in a clearing in the forest, centred around the heartbeat-flicker of the annual campfire. Even so, it’s early — or late, depending on the person — for those who sit around the flames. The town’s elders are sharing warm blankets (it makes them feel young again, staying up this late), the town’s youths are sipping mugs of hot coffee (it does feel like rebellion, staying up this late) – even a few of those who weren’t old enough to remember the event being commemorated are here, sleeping in the arms of the community that will hold them safe until the hours-away dawn and then for a while afterwards too. Anchor Rock waits.
3:57am. A wind blows through the clearing, setting tree boughs waving and flames dancing as it passes through.
No new lights turn on. Though there is soft celebration around the fire, there is no clamour. Without a Transference, there is no reason for panicked shouting, for frantic scrambling. But there was a Transference five years ago, and that is reason for remembering. As a toast is raised, drinks drunk, smiles all around, still the nightingale sings.
On Tuesday 2 May, 2029, at 3:57 local time, Anchor Rock celebrates the fifth anniversary of the Transference. Though its effects were widespread, touching half the world directly and all the world together, the big-picture effects of this event are unimportant.
The story of Anchor Rock has never been about the large-scale consequences of an unprecedented global translocation event.
It is a story about the transfers, who wandered into the square and found a place they’d like to stay rooted, despite how far it was from home. It is a story about the transfers, who found their lives overturned for six days in Anchor Rock, leaving with hearts changed as they returned to the places and people they’d left behind – but not without making a mark on the sleepy town that, for a little while, was their home.
It is a story about the locals, who, in discovering themselves, discovered that their place lay beyond the bounds of the only home they’d ever known. It is a story about the locals, who that day said hello to some faces and goodbye to some others, opening the gates of their home and stepping into roles they’d never imagined for themselves with the help of those who crossed through.
It is the story of Anchor Rock, the door to which never really closes, the place to which you can always come home. The train runs every week, after all.