The night line

A single tram line along a coast at night: a grid of light on the land side, a sea on the other, palms and towers in silhouette, and an overhead wire that hums. It has seven stops with made-up names (a pier, a lido, an arcade’s steps, a market that only opens at midnight) and ends at Daybreak. Its stops differ from night to night, and the codex doesn’t say who lays them out, or whether it is the same line twice.

It runs on the hour more than on the map: dusk at the first stop, neon and then the small hours between, and first light at the last, when the sun is back on the horizon. The line is where Last Tram is played, and like everything else here it was made by a machine.