This picture of the abandoned rail station in Salters, SC keeps me going. At the same time it scares me because it reminds me of Flannery O’Connor’s admonition to writers who happen to be so lucky (or cursed) to come from the South. “The presence alone of Faulkner in our midst makes a great difference in what the writer can and cannot permit himself to do. Nobody wants his mule and wagon stalled on the same track the Dixie Limited is roaring down.”
Still, there’s something irresistible about standing in the middle of the tracks. Tempting fate. Turning to take a hurried look at any hint of sound. First north. Then south. Up and down the old main line. Then rushing home to write like hell in the lonely hope of leaving something lasting behind.
When I first posted this photo on Instagram the caption went something like this: “Rail station. Farm country. Rare vestige from the populated agrarian South before The Unsettling of America, Wendell Berry’s classic commentary (1977). #flyovercountry #southerngothic #elegantdecadence #vanishgpoint #abandonedplaces #lightandshadow #charlestonscene #allaboard….
The first “like” came from my veterinarian friend who happened to grow up not far from the station.
“Awesome photo!” he said.
“Thanks! Your neck of the woods,” I answered.
Little did he know about the short story I had been keeping secret, The Buhrstone Quarry, all 6,888 words of it set within a stone’s throw of Salters Station.
So now voice, character, and locale abide, these three; but the greatest of these is locale.