There is a lake to the east, where the sun rises and jawless, vampire lampreys seek unwary prey. Their numbers are reduced, but one, another, or another may make its way into local waters and find unspeakable wealth in the local populations of slow, gray carp. From the lake, there is a path to the sea, but it is an artificial, stepped thing: a barrier between waters of different temperament and pedigree. There are beaches west of the lake, and the remnants of swampland. A city stands upon this swamp, enormous concrete stilts sunk deep into the soft and sullen earth. There was sun today, but clouds, exhaled from the lake, have moved inward. The temperature has dropped. And dropped again. Here, far from the lake, where a lethargic river rests, a subtle tinge of rust scents the air. There are other smells—the stink of car-farts and the bold and desperate aroma of blossoms not yet wilted. Electricity sparks in the air: not lightening, but the mark of an error, some flaw in the electrified track that powers thunderous, serpentine trains. Always, there is thunder, and the clack-clack-thump, clack-clack-thump of locomotive traffic. Electrical trains travel along raised tracks. Bigger, slower, smoke-spewing engines pull freight cars along the tracks at ground level. Behind and beneath this, small sounds assert themselves. There is the crunch of gravel to mark the passage of one man and another: compatriots of strange, inscrutable pedigree. They are expatriates-exiles from a world unlike this one. They know trains. They know rivers. But the stink of local aethers, and the clack-cladk-thump of unfamiliar trains, registers only as vague and unsettling. They speak to one another, the flavor of their vocabulary marking them as alien to this place. Their eyes are predatory and careful; they are close—after all—to local residences. Houses of wood-frame and brick that defy a logic the interloper wanderers are accustomed to. They walk calmly. By nightfall, they will rest. They will sleep. And tomorrow, the river (or perhaps a train) will carry them to another city. *** I don't know which came first, picture or vignette. One is evidently a function of the other, but as to origin, there is room for debate. At any rate, this is an image taken today. Corey and I made an excursion to Chicago's Chinatown, and had lunch in the kind of Chinese restaurant with live fish in the window and old Chinese men, speaking in the Cantonese dialect. It was a cheap place, a dive if the truth must be told, but Chinese people ate there. We'd taken hundreds of pictures each, and after eating, we wandered to the Chinatown border, and discovered something in Chicago that we'd never seen before. This image marks the borderland to that region, and the wanderers--not Corey and myself--are an artifact of the train-tracks and the unseen point at which these tracks must end. *** As always, thank you for viewing and reading and commenting, and as always, I hope you've enjoyed this image and it's small, accompanying tale.