The Greenhouse Under Platform Nine

At dawn the station exhales iron and rain. Beneath the timetable, basil leaves lift their wrists, small green clocks keeping time with the trains, each tremor a hymn through cracked concrete.

A mechanic waters them from a dented thermos, steam and soil mingling like warm bread and ozone. Sparrows hop the yellow safety line, reading crumbs and futures in the gravel.

Commuters pass with galaxies in their phones, not seeing roots braid around forgotten bolts. Yet the platform smells briefly of summer kitchens, of windows open to a louder, kinder street.

By night, sodium lamps turn the beds to amber tide; the last train leaves, and silence learns to bloom. In the dark, leaves keep making light from memory, patient as hands mending a torn sleeve.