The train whistle blew…and then there was silence…an eerie kind of silence that one only experiences past midnight in a small town where the stop light blinks a cautionary yellow throughout the night…

Train whistle blew again…and again as it rolled on…some slept right through it…dead tired from a day’s activity…standin’ on a factory’s floor…sellin’ used cars…pumpin’ gas…baby sittin’ kids that your sister Gina had ‘fore she was done with high school…people workin’ on a Monday afternoon and into the night with purple skies hangin’ over head…your brother Bobby snorin’ away down the hall…sometimes his breathin’ gets cut off and you’ll hear him sputter ’round a bit but don’t be alarmed…he ain’t dead yet…just dreamin’ away the hours on Trazadone…takes four or five of em to get to sleep…meanwhile that yellow light keeps blinkin’ off and on…

The train whistle blew some more…I got up and started a pot of coffee…couldn’t sleep…thinkin’ of you…been years now since you passed-on…died of a heart attack early in the mornin when it was dry outside…summer’s heat made all the grass hay and the stars would come out at night and form the little dipper…we called an ambulance but it took so long to get to us that you just went and gave up…an old semi putin’ on air brakes could be heard through town…you were pronounced dead there in our livin’ room…crickets chirped outside…

Then there was just silence…old lonesome silence…no more trains blowin’…no more diesels rollin to a stop at the yellow light…just quiet…

Has it always got to be so quiet…