Where Has It Gone?

 

As I watched the flickering red light vanish down the track an aura of melancholy filled the air. Kind of odd but somehow I felt cheated, much like the sensation one gets after foraging through a box of Cracker Jack and discovering it has no prize inside.  The scene conveyed more than just the end of a passing freight train, it brought to mind the demise of an indelible feature of the American landscape.

Nathan Horn

It was on one of those long sultry summer nights that I first became fascinated with Nathan. His distant moan cut through the rhythmic singing of katydids which typically ruled the night until the wee hours of the morning.