The netherworld has no cows so the train has no cow catcher. The large outward grill of an earthly steam-powered train is absent but the tall round-edge box on wheels rolls past slowly as the Narcissus’s forest approaches. Above the train and into the night shoots a tall cylinder of white smoke. Behind the smoke stack sits a taller box. Within that box sits the operator. The operator stands half in and half out of this world. A faint flicker of life trapped within a steel prison. Unlike the earthly steam-powered machine this black train runs on the essence of life. This molecular essence of every living being on the train is collected within a steel-walled tender or coal car. This car had a set of ledges, one on top and the second two feet above the train wheels. The ledge on the top was merely decorative but the one on the bottom was two foot wide, barely enough room to walk across. To help the engineer aluminum hand holds were placed at body length along both sides of the car. In the center of the car, painted on both sides, was ‘Spirit of the Dead’. The engineer stayed in the next car, a passenger car. The car was black, with windows gray from soot from the engine chimney. The soot contains the remains of the evil in men’s heart. These remains forever pushed into the atmosphere of the netherworld. Within the gray windows and inside the passenger car sits a steel chair and upon the chair is chained the engineer. Like Charles Dickens fabled protagonist the chairs bind the engineer to his earthly sins till his penance is paid. Following behind the engine was hundreds of caged cars. The cars wooden planks shake in small metal slots as the train moves forward over its iron track.
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