The City of New Orleans

They were called "Essence polarizers" and when they came out, it turned the tourist industry on its head. Even when the patented process was only being performed by one lonely lab in West Virginia, in 2037 the glasses and camera filters had spread all over the country. Some owned their own; most folks looking for a cheap(er) thrill rented them when visiting Gettysburg, old Salem, the local inn. But the most impressive application I ever saw was when I visited old New Orleans in the fall of that year.

Every window on the train was made out of EP glass. I remembered wandering through with a friend, trying to choose a place to sit. There were EP picture windows and EP portholes; all the tables were decked with white cloth. I slipped into a chair on the edge of one of the big windows, wondering if they really meant to serve us dinner in front of this show. The inside of all the cars was papered burgundy, with polished wood trim. It was very fine; someone had spent a lot of money; but what I remember most was the white tablecloths.

My friend sat across the table from me as the train began to pull forward. It rode into old New Orleans, and we began to see the ruins of houses... the walls were half gone, and we could see the kitchens and living rooms and bedrooms, their lines, as if they were cross-sections of houses cut for viewing, which perhaps they were... and I could see the ghosts. They looked just like people. If I hadn't known they were ghosts, the show would have been boring. Perhaps once every ten houses, we would see one or two. An old man or grandmother, or a young couple. They were walking through the rooms of their homes; they were taking out the trash, mowing the lawn. Occasionally I would see a shifting or wavering as a spirit faded in and out within my view; sometimes one would disappear mid-chore, or another appear.

The effect was little more than mundane at first, but as the train rode on, I began to feel more and not less affected. It was in part the sheer numbers. The tour went on. This is real, I thought; all these people were real. I put my face closer to the window and peered as the twilight began to come on. The grimy and white gaping interiors of houses flashed by. We were surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses.