Lambent These summer evenings take me back as I recline in my plastic lawn chair. I watch as the sun sinks behind the smokestacks of an ingot factory. My chin resting on the palm of one hand, the other hand dangling over the arm rest cupping a cigarette that is smoking itself. It hasn't always been this way. Before the road that led to an industrial park there was a winding gravel path just wide enough to accommodate two passing cars or one large tractor. Before my street had been littered with burger joint bags and beer bottles it was decorated with honeysuckle vines and sweet, wild blackberries. Before there were Playstations and computers and all the fancy gadgets that beep there was sidewalk chalk, rope swings dangling from old oak trees and the music of healthy, laughing children. Across the field I caught a glimpse of the shadow of a man I thought I knew. It was my father crossing that old gravel path packing his rifle in one hand and cupping a cigarette in the other. Just as I thought his face might come into focus my cell phone rang and the image faded away. Damn these newfangled gadgets! I may never feel this way again.