The train store in that shopping mall was not beglamoured by Christmas lights. No baubles, ribbons, jingle bells, evergreens. Not a place for children.

None of the usual aural suspects, either. No chugging or whirring of engines, no choo-chooing of horns or ding-dinging of crossing signals. No blasts of autotuned voices, “Next stop, the North Pole!” None of this.

A plain square room, green-painted, it is a maze of long tables, set end-to-end. Model trains scurry soundlessly over crisscrossing silver tracks, all in miniature. Off they go! Through countless scenic countrysides, rural towns and urban developments, they cut through (de)forested hills replete with newly naked stumps, they burrow into the open jaws of blasted mountainsides, laze across bridges spanning tumbling blue rivers on the banks of which are pitched the canvas tents of boy scout troupes, bivouacking with their uncles and brothers and fathers. Fathers, seen through the windows of tiny, whitewashed store fronts, shake hands with customers; or tape up brown-paper bundles in pastoral postal centers; or operate big yellow tractors or toothy lifts; or drive refrigerated trucks hauling plastic-wrapped packages of beef, lamp, pork, and chicken. Fresh! Local! Organic! Livestock and poultry farms on the next table over: intricate, inanimate animals penned and herded up ramps and into great square barns behind which run the silent, shiny tracks, the always trains.

How many hands lovingly painted glue to how many hooves? How many stooped backs and tired, squinting eyes? How proudly display the blue, red, and white ribbons!

I was out strolling the mall to buy a hat I did not need. Diverted, I wandered into the store, breath sour-kissed by Christmas chocolates. Who was I to stop and wonder, or watch?

A boy and girl, eager, tracked a five-car Union Pacific. Squealed whenever it disappeared behind some cutaway of land or industry or other. Their voices were young among the museum hush, the adult murmurs of admiration, bored appraisal, moderate interest.

Ah ha! Here it comes, out from inside the tunnel! Delighted laughter, followed by, Shh, shh, see the people with the signs? They’re part of a union. Do you know what a union is?

But the train had now passed by the table where the workers stood on noiseless strike. The children followed, and were soon out of sight.