The flip sign--a marvel of Italian design. Letters and numbers would flip with the fluttering swiftness of hummingbird wings or those old packs of cards that created moving pictures of a dog jumping or a couple making love. When it stopped: Florence to Milan, 10:55. Platform 12.
Waiting for a train in Trieste or Milan, I'd watch, quite bewitched, as the large black board flutter-spelled the times and platforms of arrivals and departures.
It's dormant now, overtaken by digital signs. Like the displacement of books by e-books or (in our lifetime?) of breakfast, lunch and supper by that single atomic capsule we slip down our throat at bedtime, a tangible enchantment has been lost.
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