Month: August 2023

Dark streets, hundreds of silent autos parked almost too close to the rail, mammoth buildings, many still lit, now looming in the blacker outline, isolated houses, houses of dirt, of noise, cherry ones, then dark, dark ones; one wonders, the occupation of the owners. Billboards, billboards, drink this, eat that, use all the manner of things, EVERYONE, the best, the cheapest, the purest and most satisfying of all their available counterparts. Red lights flicker on each horizon, airplanes beware; cars flash by, more lights. Workers repair the gas main. Signs, signs, lights, lights, streets, streets; it is the dark between that attracts one-what’s happening there at this moment? What hidden thing, glorious perhaps, is being passed and lost forever. The congestion slackens, a cone of widening sparsity stretches before the train, no one has left the center and its core is burst past past as the interlocking plants terminate grip and entrust us to the automatic block systems meticulous care. The maze of tracks have unwreathed from cross-over webs of railroad intellectuality to become simple main line and dignity; these ribbons of accurate gauge so ceaselessly toiled over, respected, feared. Oh, unending high rail of intrigue!