WEBVTT

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The 742 freight was late again, its approach

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telegraphed not by headlights, but by the

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familiar bone -deep shudder of the riveted iron

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beneath my boots.

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I stood midway across the massive rail bridge,

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a labyrinth of rusted metal girders that stretched

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endlessly over the dark, sprawling artery of the

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industrial river below.

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Faint, cool fog was already beginning to uncurl

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from the water's surface, swallowing the

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rusted pylons and blurring the boundary between the

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heavy flow and the soot -stained warehouses

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lining the banks.

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Above the sky was painted in a bruised,

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dusky violet light.

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The urban skyline bled into the gloaming, a

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jagged silhouette of smokestacks, cranes,

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and flickering sodium vapor lamps that hummed with

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the electric pulse of the night shift.

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Down below, chemical barges churned the oily currents,

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their distant horns groaning against

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the encroaching stillness.

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With a sudden, deafening roar, the locomotive tore

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out of the twilight tunnel on the east

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bank.

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Sparks showered from the screeching brakes as the

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heavy steel serpent thundered past,

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vibrating every bolt and beam of the ancient

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structure.

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I pressed my back against the latticework, feeling

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the raw, imposing might of the industrial

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age rush right through me.

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And then, just as quickly as it had

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arrived, the train vanished into the violet haze

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of

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the western yards, leaving behind only the acrid

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scent of ozone, the gentle lapping of

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the river in the dark, and the slow,

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heavy breathing of the city settling into dusk.