The 3:17 Freight

At 3:17 in the morning, a freight train crosses the East Van rail corridor by the False Creek flats. The train does not arrive at 3:17. 3:17 arrives with the train. Every clock within earshot holds at 3:17, or turns to it, for as long as the cars are passing, and lets go when the last one has.

The Freight is how Terminal City throws things away. Failed repairs, old versions of a corner, objects that ended up in the wrong place, the residue of a long night: anything the city cannot reconcile in the current build gets loaded onto the Freight and carried out. Nobody has explained who does the loading, and the city is not in a hurry to find out. The train goes on longer than it should. Cars repeat. Which is one more reason not to count them.

The Old Line keeps what must be remembered. The Freight removes what cannot remain. When it has gone, the fog comes in behind it and the rebuild begins.