The trains still came, but they were a commonplace now, no longer an amazement. Wonder had been tamed. The blood and bone spent to lay the rails and build the platforms still performed the task for which it had been sacrificed, but time had softened the cries of the spirits. At most, a passenger might hear, and think if the wind howling or the brakes screaming.
The pride of the linemen and drivers was exhausted, and duty’s devotion buried under mere repetition. The wheels on the trains still turned, but more to push the numbers in the bank accounts, than the no-longer-mighty engines.
And Periander, god of railways, looked down upon the once-proud copper dome that surmounted his temple, and wondered if anyone would notice when it rusted to nothing.
~
image: Angelica East
text: Loki Carbis
