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Alex Goldstein was an angry man this day. His divorce from his wife Darlene was a messy affair. Still, he wanted to make amends.  For just over fourteen years they were married, mostly enjoying happy times together. Yet one night of enticement and lust slipped into his life. Thus, Alex had strayed; he fell to his weakness for an old girlfriend. Now riding on a train southbound toward New Orleans, he cursed himself for ruining a long and loving relationship over a sordid one-night-stand. Alex was hateful, hateful of himself. In his hand, he held the last thing that she left behind – an old, stained map.

"Excuse me, sir," Alex interrupted a train conductor as he walked past the narrow innards of the cars. "I understand we’ll be passing a town called Newhaven soon. Can you make sure to announce it when we get there? I don’t usually travel this far from the city and I want to make sure I don’t pass it up."

"Newhaven, you say? Hmm, we don’t have that town on our agenda. It sounds vaguely familiar, but we never stop there. Leastwise this train never stopped there for – ah, for well over sixty years." The conductor explained. "My grandfather used to tell me weird stuff about that place."

"But you DO have to stop there, right?"

"Actually, no; we never stop in Newhaven."

"What, but why? I have it right here on this train schedule?" Alex asked in puzzlement.

"That schedule is very outdated, sir. We simply never stop there – never." The bald conductor said as he suspiciously narrowed his eyes at the aged map.

"I don’t understand. If this train passes directly through it, why can’t I get off there?" Alex demanded.

"It’s very, very rural, sir. Some say it’s practically a ghost town. Nobody ever wants to get off there. I’m sorry, sir, but you’ll just have to give that idea up."

Alex was enraged by the smugness and defiance of the once polite conductor. But instead of letting his anger rise, he offered a tempting bribe to the man. Pulling two fifty-dollar bills from his wallet, Alex inquired again.

"Maybe this time you CAN stop at that town. It’s very important that I get there." Alex bribed.

The conductor took the money in a quick and greedy slight-of-hand.

"Well, sir, I’m not allowed to actually stop there, but I could slow the train down enough. Enough that if a certain desperate person wanted, they could jump right on out from between the train cars. I’m sure a conductor with bad division, such as myself, wouldn’t notice."

And just like that, the bald conductor waddled away on his old legs, leaving Alex to consider his indirect proposal. Alex began to remember things about his wife then. When Darlene left, he felt a powerful sense of regret. He wanted her back now more than ever. Alex knew he had to get to her, but this was beginning to get harder by the moment. If she resided in the old town, he’d have to make his way to Newhaven and do so quickly, since the Civil War Era station was slowly starting to come into view.

"Man, I hope this guy knows what he’s talking about," Alex muttered. "I’d hate to have wasted a hundred dollars and my precious time just to get stuck in some boon-dock-nowhere town for nothing."

Alex was a prominent lawyer from Manhattan. He grew up in New York’s tough ghetto among the region often dubbed as Hell’s Kitchen. He was smart and rugged, and he prized himself in taking his streetwise ethics and transforming them into intellectual advantages. But as he peered out of the slowing train, he saw a very different world. He didn’t see the rush of roaring cars, or the flickering of city streetlights, or even the cursing cat-calls of hoodlum streetwalkers. No, this place really was rural. It’s only boasts were far-separated farmhouses, wide cornfields, and quaint pink houses that looked like they were ripped straight from a suburban magazine of the 1950’s.

"Damn, if I’m going to do this, I have to do this now – before this train starts speeding up again." He whispered to himself.

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