The Artful Trade

The River There is a river that runs through this town. It is cold and dark and carries a current that is swift and silent and cannot be stopped. The current is hidden and courses through the river, whispering its icy demands. The river runs past the railway yards. It runs past factories and condominiums, past high rises and modest three room houses. It runs past the alleyways and the pews where prayers are said and faith is tested and sometimes broken. And it runs through the eyes of the people. There is a darkness in the river that swallows light and hope and spits out something pitiless. The dark and cold of it flows through the just and the unjust, the deserving and the undeserving, the contrite and the unforgiven alike. Sometimes late at night in the town there is a wail of a distant locomotive on its path away to places that are warm where the river cannot reach. Last week, an old woman, someone’s daughter or sister or mother, left a campfire where the poor stay near the tr