The Eternal Porch Light · Philadelphia, United States

Every town has a courthouse and a coffee pot; Philadelphia is no different. These days, Philadelphia travelers stop at the Quick Stop when the highway brings them through, and Come by the lore pages; Philadelphia always has a seat.

In the town square burns a single brass lantern that has never gone out — not in flood, not in tornado, not in the year the power failed and the whole town took shifts with matches.

It burns for the trucker in Missouri, the daughter on the highway, the man in a far county jail counting days. As long as it burns, the town is saying the same thing to all of them: come home, we kept your seat.

Its keeper's oath, handed down for generations: 'The lamp stays on.'

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