Sirens of Morning Light

By Benjamin Anderson

Eighteen-year-old Chase Wilson meets a stranger who has amnesia. He names the stranger Dan, and he directs the stranger to visit the Joneses. Dan later meets Anthony. From his dreams he discovers that he must be an experiment. His late meet with Dr. Wadsworth heightens his struggle with the discovery of his identity, which has a consequence from the people who remember him as James.
Other similar books may support the theme of a scientific experiment. However, Sirens of Morning Light embeds the struggle in the countryside of Iowa, which is a unique setting for an emerging amnesic stranger. The depth of the book is also unique as James must decide on how to revisit the wife who loved him and bore him a son in the face of her marriage to Rich. The large cast of characters also differentiates the book as characters like Chase return in the plot with stories of trials and successes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Guevin
• Release date: Apr 13, 2013
• ISBN: 9781929882199

Benjamin Anderson

Benjamin Anderson (Assistant Professor of History of Art and Visual Studies, Cornell University) studies the visual and material cultures of the eastern Mediterranean, with a focus on late antiquity and Byzantium. A monograph, Cosmos and Community in Early Medieval Art is forthcoming from Yale University Press in 2017.

Book preview

Chapter One

Darkness cloaks the land. Silent remains the night. All across the great expanse of Iowa, beings surrender to enchanting dreams as emptiness remains in the wake, the path traveled and abandoned by creatures of night roaming upon the night, concealing the crafts to reveal themselves by morning light. Spring is upon the country. Autumnal vestiges nourish the land. And there it resides on the eastern horizon, the sun ready to ascend into morning and brighten the skies above, banishing illusions of night as figments of imagination and mind sail valiantly off into the wake, dreams crashing upon the shores of untamed reality where will be found that for which so long has been sought through the night, that harmony and completeness in serenity, relinquishing the fires of turmoil and desire, rising high upon the wings of human bondage into the presence of a renewed being all in the awakening.

The land of Iowa is a wavering plain, and the plain is soil and life. Folds of darkness blanket the land, easing the human race to sleep. Upon the land come stumbling and laboring the creatures of night, employed by hunger and need, scurrying for food in the flowing fields and crevices of darkness alike, beseeching that required element, satiating desire’s need to retain the wanderings of life. The revealing air is left to void. Silence contains the secrets upon the land.

Out of silence a presence is born. A thread of voices abounds like a soft cry, unmistakable in its being. The chirping of crickets over the fields merges and flows as a river over rocks, humming as a mother to her newborn child, revealing a song ancient by those that have long retained its verse, not erring from a note. This alone sounds the night; this alone conceals the cautioned steps of other beings, not wanting to snap a twig lest a predator search upon the source of the sound. Into the darkness creatures disband.

Gentle are the winds of night, lifting blades of grass and stalks of corn as though stroking hair upon precious heads. Above, the wind sweeps the few clouds present in the nighttime sky, leaving in full view the abundant light of a full moon. Illuminated, its face features the dark scars on light surfaces. Evident through the darkened sky, constellations of spring shine through. Pegasus suspends its eternal race in a state of rest. Draco hangs as a looming specter. Poised in the sky is Orion, locked in his warrior stance in the sky forever. Taurus graces the sky as the animal of might that dances with his foe, and Gemini, the twins, one constellation in the presence of two bodies, two worlds in separate space but together alike, everything being two in what is one object, hang as though withholding some truth that becomes a lingering mystery. And the guiding North Star, hanging in the Little Dipper, shines radiant to needy eye. These celestial objects compose the nighttime sky.

Cast down from the sky are the moon beams, descending to the street below. A man emerges, a dark configuration of the night, beating forward upon the road.

Indistinguishable in the dim light, the man is a presence bold in the late hour and unfamiliar to the land. His steps are slow and uneven, monitored closely by the watchful eyes of suspicious beings beside the road. Unable to understand the man and his intent for being there, they raise their hair in some readied defense to attack. Resentful of this stranger that comes upon the territory they roam, they bare their teeth and ready their claws. Fearful for their privacy and their peace and their lives, afraid what might be seized if they do not seize first, they stir and contrive plans for what must become of this intruder, this man whose very existence might cause disaster and their distress, this foreigner to the land.

The man staggers. His shadow distorts upon the street, reflecting the form marching on. The arms contort themselves, thrusting forward, stressing onward. The leg muscles pull and contract the man so wearied and tired. The head is muddled, confused as though the blank night laid the stage for every indiscreet image cornered inside his brain. The eyes flicker, so misunderstanding and disoriented, unable to comprehend the environment surrounding, nevertheless ordering the feet to push forward, onward.

To the eyes of these creatures of night arrive these images of the form, indicating every suspicion that the man is a convulsive nightmare stirring upon the road that parts the land in two. They prowl upon the night, watching his every move, waiting for the first mistake to be made, followed by the final test of wits and courage and will.

A presence arrives. Sensations of light and sound sweep through the air. The creatures prick their ears and dart their eyes across the reaches of the night. They listen. They see.

Scattering upon the night, they flee from the form and forget their suspicions as they disperse as light shot across the universe. The man picks up his head, wondering, enlightened, though once he was confused. The humming crickets fade out of the night. The presence of anything once seen or heard is vanquished by the arrival of a new. A light fills the land. A humming noise slowly picks up across the fields from a truck bustling in from the distance.

This sensation draws the man out of old confusions, possessing his mind one time before. Now the only existence is that of a truck, this new mystery, the light that it shows and the sound that it brings. Lifting his hand to the brows of his head, he sights this presence in the distance and hears the slow, rhythmic hum of the tumbling tires that propel the truck into the lingering night. The man halts his pulsating steps altogether, fascinated by this wonder arriving through the darkness.

The road stretches long upon which the man stands, not ending until far into the distance. But on this same road is the truck barreling through the lengths of the night. On this road is the man too disoriented to distinguish the feeling. Here is the man, overcome with the paralysis of fright.

The truck drives forward, brightening the road and amplifying its roar. The once shadowed figure becomes distinguishable in the approaching light, unveiling features upon a disheartened face, revealing the distortions of a face mortified with fear. Light beams upon the man, but his eyes scarcely see. The truck sounds its horn, pulsing through the night, deafening the man’s own heartbeat, furious with fright. The clamor lessens its intervals and threads into the complete unquiet until the vociferous air manifests into that of a siren, merciless in its conviction to expel the being from dangerous reality out unto seas of dreamy night.

The man contorts. Holding his head with his hands, he blocks out the merciless light that blows upon his eyes, unable to come to the reality of the situation. Leaning away from this contraption of ill route, the man falls backwards, landing with a thud upon the street. The man rolls in pain, contracting inward from the destructive forces around, fearing all existence enclosing.

A violent screech fills the air as the truck swerves to miss the man. The front of the truck veers to avoid as the bulky rear remains unfaithful to the cause. With a great surge of effort the truck sweeps no more than a foot from the man and barrels back into the night, a ghostly specter evanescent.

Shaking convulsively, the man staggers, nevertheless attempting to regain his balance. He shakes his head, dispersing the clouded visions of his mind. The man raises his eyes upon the road rolling before him into the night. Taking the first steps, he progresses into the enfolding veils of darkness.

The creatures of night encroach back upon the night, their tasks reborn. Their initiatives revive with their duties to the night, prowling for food and the necessities of existing with life’s hunger. The humming of the crickets resumes to conceal the duties manifested by the creatures who wander with wary ears and cautious touch and watchful sight. Night regains its yearning.

A note calls. The animals curiously lift their heads to distinguish the sound. The note calls again, flipping and triumphing in the air like a dandelion seed flying in the sky. The creatures retract. Lowering their heads, they recede serenely into the crevices of night from whence they came.

The note unfolds into a song, and the song blooms into a melody. Through the still darkness the birds sing, expressing their hearts of dreams and desires, caroling those beings out of the dreamy seas, crashing upon the shores of reality found by day, that indefinite conundrum of purpose and searching for that wonder, the imagined truth where desire meets the destined path in the unfolding day.

The sky grows purple, the rich color of royalty and the revelation of morning soon to come. Surely the sky unfolds into a lighter purple, a deeper blue, separating certain shears of red in the depths of the sky while the wide blue portal above heralds the oncoming morning. Colors recede into new shades along the horizon line surrounding the fields of Iowa.

Eastward, the sky saturates in blue, yet a suspension of plush gold and crimson bands settles at the horizon, gathering and gathering in multitudes of color as a rainbow, though inverse in appearance upon the land. The summit of the sun is here in the east, glowing brilliantly in red and yellow while awaiting the sun to spark the eastern skies into morning. Brighter and brighter the land grows, defining color and shape. Red flames catch the blades of grass along the horizon with the first presence of the sun, a red radiance layering higher and higher upon the land, sending the glimmering sphere into sapphire skies. In luminous splendor the sun ascends to become that bright presence in the sky, shunning onlookers yet bestowing sight to creatures of day below.

Whirling through an endless sea of skies and fields is the wind, whisking its way across the land of Iowa. The wind lifts to scrape the serene blue skies. Then it descends, spiraling through the atmosphere, plummeting headlong as features of soil and living spirits beneath rush closer and closer until the wind reverts, whipping blades of grass as it surges outward, parallel to the earth’s surface. The air blows across stubble cornfields over miles of land, a mystic journeyer over the country, a valiant vessel impenetrable as it sails into morning.

Across the fields where grass blades border the road lies an apple tree, cast with green leaves and young buds of spring. The tree is a man, straggling with the weight carried upon its awry branches. The shadow of the tree casts its twisted image upon the ground, but something differs. The shadow is more than complete in its image. There is a restful man by the tree, gazing upwards upon the unfamiliar land, introspective with the circling skies unfolding the depths of the surrounding country.

Into the distance is a middle-aged farmer, a man native to Iowa who perspires long and hard upon his cornfields. He surveys his country from a wooden porch, observing the details of a sky unfolding, the land colored by spring, and the wind that glances the coarse areas of his face. The farmer takes his breaths heavier than necessary in the outdoor air. The work spreads out before him, the earthy farmland devoid of snow in spring newly arrived, but he also extends a certain fascination while preoccupied with the land, a certain knowledge that the land is his duty and his heart, a task he would not avoid. Descending the steps of the porch, he heads into the abounding country.

Boldly, with valiance, pursuing, onwards—down the road comes the young man, thrust ceaselessly amidst the great expanse of land, down the dividing road toward the horizon, the unending depths of his soul and mind.

Chapter Two

Arms flailing, the head bobbing, the young man appears. The fixtures contort themselves, distribute freely in variable directions the unconquerable struggle within, that search to find more in life in the world confined to laws of nature and fate. The young man shakes his limbs furiously. A hovering mass of whiteness, pure as the falling snow in the winter season, suspended for just a fraction of a second in the perfection of wholeness in time, guides through the air to impact upon the blackened ground, dispersing in the form of a hand. He spits on the street.

Indeed he does march forward, evincing his struggle in every exaggerated movement. Each step hits the ground unintelligibly, neglecting its placement and significance in the subsequent steps. The arms seem a separate mind from the body. They toss freely with each step, constantly convulsed in diverse directions, pointing outward toward a person or an idea, some place or some thing. A conviction rests in these arms to express their attachment to humanity. And the head, all part of one mind, one realization, one voice, can be either firm and attentive or rampageous of the world that encloses him.

The eyes linger there, seeing but not perceiving the world. Sky, earth, sun, and fields—all are one void. Seen only by him is the path beneath and the horizon beyond.

The young man grumbles. Across the stubble fields he sparks rocks that fly with fleeting pace to find their resting place. His eyes chart the northeastern horizon, merging land and sky. Deep from within, his song of truth and being soars spiritually released. Verses of the song, forever lasting in endless resonance of the sacred words, release to the country abroad:

O, what a world with all the crud balls and slime buckets—

Why I oughta show them what’s good for them anyhow!

I’ll show them what I’m made of with all my force and might,

And then we’ll see just who’s boss anyhow.

All the nincompoops think they’re hot stuff.

Well, I oughta show them a thing or two to help’em out.

They’re not so hot getting tough for their own foolish play,

And they’re only human anyhow.

Where are the friends in this? Are there only allies?

They come and they go, and some I trust less than dirt.

Where’d they leave me and shun me all those years back,

And why do the ones today have to argue with me?

Family is such a fickle bond where duties are everyday and dull.

It’s being held together by blood and kept by blood.

Why, I oughta get out and find a place of my own to live

Because I’m eighteen and can’t stand this backwater country!

The horizon so slim and the road so straight to get there greets the young man in his never-ending pursuit. His thoughts are those of the past; his worries, those of the present; his dreams, of his future. Looking up, the young man sees the sun shining down. Blue day conquers, bestowing its radiance to the land below.

Off to the horizon the young man discharges terse verses of his song like the rocks he sparks off the roadside. He strangles the melody down to the base meaning of speech, feigning sighs whose gentler inflections he might have accomplished before a friend, but now he unwinds as though reading from a list of sorrows:

And what of my father? A lingering intimidating presence it seems,

On in his years and troubles and worries, all on his house,

Telling me to be a man but denying my responsibility to affairs.

He is a man and I am a man, and soon I’ll be my own man.

Sure, I’ve got a girl to stand beside me. So what?

How can I understand and find how to love her,

All those things I expect and things she expects

And always apart, only dreaming of each other?

Who am I? Who will I be? Chase Wilson by birthright,

but so many things.

How can I live up to good when all I can do is accuse the wrong?

How will I know when all I can do is question?

History, time, will it forget and neglect me?

Just to be free! Freedom from all obligations,

To have the freedom of the child but still be my own master,

To wander without imprisoning walls surrounding,

To a life of dreamy reality—

Hello? Who is it?

Chase halts his advance to observe a gap in the stubble fields with an apple tree there, displaying great size and untold years. Enclosed in a circular ring of grass, this tree blooms in the spring season. Below the tree sits a man, a spectral dark form that is part of the tree’s shade.

Picking up his pace, the young man endeavors to meet this other man. Stepping through leaves of grass, he then stands solitarily before him.

Shifting his feet, Chase uneasily opens, Well! Seems to be some start of a day.

Craning his neck to peer from his shade into sunlight, the stranger states, Where are you coming from kid? I’ve seen you traveling down this road this morning. Any particular destination? Any particular reason?

Chase strenuously strokes the fingers of his other hand, holding within the truths of what he’s without, his destiny longingly pursued. His shrouded past, part of that which he shouted down the road, here meets an individual whom Chase can only suppose to possess a ready ear, equipped already with that other capacity to spot him traveling down a road. Chase withholds the true words, customary to one who is such a stranger, but explains the momentum driving him forward with his new face on the day. My destination is just in answer to my quest. My reason for going, it’s to find out answers to questions.

The stranger candidly observes Chase, who clarifies, I just needed to get my mind off things. Seems I can fall into a state of fanciful fury if I don’t let it off down these easy roads.

The stranger, continuing to look at Chase, says nothing.

Chase adjusts his posture, realizing he is the shape of this stranger’s vision. With where the stranger’s eyes had looked before, down at the ground, nothing seeing, or so Chase supposed, Chase could wonder what this stranger withholds, could inquire what strange force brings the unfamiliar man to his country. It would have entered his thoughts if not for the constant staring of the stranger’s eyes, forcing out the question and eliciting his other words, I suppose I can take a bit too much meaning from one or two questions. I’m usually in some frenzy, so don’t mind. I’m Chase Wilson, he offers with an open hand.

The stranger silently acknowledges the hand, which Chase begins to withdraw. The stranger ventures, I heard you trying to get your mind off things back there, but I’m afraid I don’t have a mind for them myself.

A wrenching jolt knots up the pit of Chase’s stomach. The stranger might as well have heard his whole soul marching down the road. Feeling exposed, Chase can’t see the man before him, exclusively mindful of his self, until the stranger expands his freelance offer to include, Consider me company if you will, though I’m not much taken to words right now.

Then Chase smiles, realizing an opportunity to reposition himself beside this stranger’s gaze rather than before him, though already he averts his eyes. Chase joins the stranger with a seat on the earthen floor beneath the spreading apple tree.

Marking up the stranger with furtive glances, Chase notices the stranger’s stare falls on that portion of the road where Chase has traveled, which proves only a little less disturbing than having the stranger’s eyes on himself. Chase examines the clothes, a white short-sleeve shirt and starched blue jeans otherwise revealing blotches of skin through torn cuffs at the ankles. Their base appearance to him indicates some kind of uniform. Chase should know from having to wear his high school’s gym uniform, clashing with its solid black and white colors. Seeking another explanation, Chase exchanges a comment typically awarded to students who wear unsightly clothes, Were you going for some kind of experiment today?

The stranger returns his eyes but finds less holding power in them as he realizes Chase is looking at his clothes. As though provided with new awareness, the stranger starts, What, these clothes? I don’t know— but finds his comment instantly abandoned by Chase, who, saying nothing, smiling only errantly, searches his distant horizon. Focusing first on Chase, the stranger glimpses at his clothes again before scaling his eyes thoughtlessly back up the unknown distance. The sun slants sideways into the eyes of the stranger, who resists their enlightening rays that color the world different from the one in which he emerged before morning. For him a flat feeling does not give rise to thoughts. He could not begin to describe feeling after his sudden awakening into strange sight and sound.

Chase guesses the star must be a nine o’clock sun or so. No clouds to mar the sky bring the clear distance near to him. Two birds shed musical notes as they sail across the sky. The gliding wind sends rippling waves through the grasses and stubble fields.

Chase renews the distance by bringing it back to himself. Knowing this land, he settles something for himself, that if one or both of he and the stranger have thus overlooked this countryside, coordinating conventional manners in their present company, he insists that he would speak, even if only to speak for himself. If nothing else could found itself between the stranger and he, common news remains an approachable topic. That he would speak. Chase finds the matter rising from the road before him, burning black and hot in his mind.

That road, Chase asserts, Used to be your genuine back country trail. A couple years before I was born, it was. The country folk had no real reason for it to be paved. Now it’s paved. This wasn’t a major road whatsoever, but the people just started growing out from the city. Now that they were in our country, they got tired of our country road—too dusty and rocky for cars to be traveling every day. So they paved the road and gave it a name—Wake Street. That’s its story. And now people come down the road looking for houses to live in.

The story’s evidence in the surrounding country gives thought to rise in the stranger’s head, crooking toward the open land behind the black road. The stranger leaves an eye for Chase, who sighs, explaining, "Believe me, once you go down the road, you’ll see the houses. Farming is a hard trade, and though plenty farmers still work the land, there are housing developers who can argue them out of their land. There’s more to farming than tossing down seeds and waiting for a good harvest. Take last week, for example. You should’ve seen the heavy machinery that the farmers had out here, plowing the land in preparation for planting the seeds. They’ll keep it up, waking each early morning to begin a long day of work. I’ll tell you that you’ve got to have a great love for the job to be a farmer because even after they’ve finished their duties, their payments are still due on their equipment and their land. Farming takes a good deal of strength out of them. They work that hard.

"Then you have these developers coming in, offering good money in exchange for their property so that a couple of families can come out here to live. Farmers constantly weaken under the pressures of that offer. I remember it was only a few years ago that farmer Morgan gave up a good deal of his land. When farmers have to decide between their long tradition of farming and getting a decent pay, sometimes they’ll hand themselves over to these business folk from the city.

Then there’s my old man. He’s been going at his job for all these years now, breaking his back over the work, often owing debts, avoiding letting the land go—for what reason? Well, he just feels like farming is some great legacy. I’ll tell you that he’s crazy, but he actually has some sort of love for this country out here. Why that is exactly, I haven’t quite found out yet. I suppose he’s just grown into it and everything. Guess that happens.

And you can stand it here? the stranger contends.

Well, I’ve had to, truthfully.

Chase—that’s you’re name, isn’t it?

Yes. Chase Wilson.

Well, I don’t know what to make of all this. I don’t know that I’ve been out this way very often, but it sure seems to have a story to it.

You’re in Story County, and Story City is close by. There’s a story waiting almost everywhere you look. It’s all old news, to be frank with you.

You must have lived it.

I suppose that I have, though I may not see it finished. Farmers are about ready to give into the developers, and once that happens, they’ll sell more and more land until finally they root themselves out. Here, housing developers really have hit home.

I hope it turns out better than that.

Well, there’s a lot more involved in it, Chase says, waving his hand as though to brush the topic aside. I’m just in a talkative mood right now. I don’t care to get too much further into it. The farmers could tell you the rest of the story.

The stranger does not say anything but looks back into the distance. Chase too observes the country with some introspection into what he has said. Aside from the small news of housing developers, the landscape has remained unchanged from how he saw it as a child. One day it would change. It must. One day, he would arrive back where he once lived, gone for some time, and it would all seem so unfamiliar from the time spent away, as he plans to do. Chase brushes up against the grass and tree and looks to the fields and sky, realizing that someday they too will be gone, and he will grow to miss his old home as a part of himself.

Holding back these other words from the stranger, Chase assesses them for himself, knowing he is being accused as part of the problem. He doesn’t care to stay and live the farming trade, and neither does he discern his responsibility toward such a cause. Chase’s heart is part of the country, but it is not the same with farming. Chase admires freedom, and if farming is not freedom, then Chase wants nothing of it.

A car passes by, headed west, whirring as it penetrates the country and vanishes into the distance. Chase takes notice of his country, unhampered by buildings that would block the sunrise, sunset, and course of the sun throughout the day. He notes the farm in the distance and homes just over the rise. What he discerns in particular, though, is the black median, running through the heartland of this farming community, dividing the country into two separate bodies. Making its way here out to the network of roads, Wake Street is his path to freedom.

Chase lowers his head and sighs. It’s too dull here, he says.

The stranger looks beside himself. Pretty beautiful, though.

Yes, but that has its limits. I’ve lived eighteen years of my life here, been stuck around here too long. It’s lost its hold over me. Every day it’s the same people with all the same feelings and all the same priorities. The county of Story is about the only place I’ve ever known. There’s been no other place for me. I need to get out of here. I need to see new places instead of living here, wasting life away.

The stranger says nothing, nodding in mild agreement but waiting for Chase to continue.

Chase says, Well, I suppose I may be talking too dramatically here, but I still want to spend some of my life elsewhere. I’m eighteen, and I’ve way too much energy. Chase draws a deep breath. There are too many things. There really are.

Unaffected by such a broad warning, the stranger sits quietly so that the air around him stills.

Noting the reoccurrence of his silence, Chase makes a fist with his right hand, cups his left palm around it, and cracks the knuckle of the index finger on his right hand. Maybe people aren’t supposed to gripe about their problems. Maybe they’re supposed to bear them deep down and not question. He cracks the knuckle on his middle finger and the one on his ring finger. But things can accumulate into larger problems if they aren’t questioned, and then it may be too late. The knuckle on his pinky finger snaps.

Chase shakes out his right hand before he clenches his left. Wrapping his right hand around the other, he resumes, I care for my family: my dad, mom, and sister. The first knuckle pops. Once in a while there comes some favor I need them to do for me, and when that’s overlooked—how am I supposed to react? The second knuckle pops. I try to keep up with what they ask out of me, so I don’t always see why they have an excuse themselves. Chase cracks the third knuckle and pauses, spreading his left hand so he can examine it.

Although perhaps the worst part is feeling that you may be responsible for what’s happened. The pinky finger on his left hand is cut off halfway, revealing only a stub of warped flesh at its tip. Chase makes a fist with his left hand again, hiding it. There are just so many things that build up over time. When you see your family, the hurt is there because you know what’s been overlooked while they’re not really thinking about it. Chase hesitates, then murmurs, Yeah, people would have to be bored before they would note what their eyes easily pass over. Think I want to stay, Dad, when farming is this dangerous?—I don’t even let my girlfriend look at it.—I have her look at my eyes.

Huh? the stranger asks, startled by Chase’s quick words.

Recollecting himself, Chase asserts, Let me put it this way. People need a home to be providing, so when that’s not met, people hold the ones they love accountable for what they expected out of love, but after a time, who knows what to expect from such people? That’s where I’m seeing things.

I don’t know what to say about that one, the stranger speaks, meditating aimlessly. Family. Don’t know that I ever really had one.

Oh. I’m sorry.

You don’t need to be. There’s really nothing to tell.

Chase nods his head. Family is just a burden anyway. Don’t worry, though—there are other things to worry about other than family. For me, turning eighteen is a whole new thing. There are new privileges, such as the ability to vote and live on one’s own. But I’ll tell you what, turning eighteen sure makes for a lot of new obligations. I’ll have taxes for everything some day. The government could even draft me into the military, I suppose. At least I have a car, but I can tell you, there’s a lot of care that goes into that car—more effort than what goes into knowing most people. There’s all this stuff to learn about cars from the body frame to the engine and transmission. I’ve got a job at a car service station with decent pay, and it wears me down, keeping up with all those components under the hood, especially on the newer cars.

If you’ve got so many problems with cars, the stranger says, why bother owning one?

The girl.

Huh?

The girl comes with the car.

The stranger shakes his head.

I’m serious about that.

Sure. And I suppose next you’ll be telling me that girls need to have their parts changed.

Hey. I really don’t know enough about girls that way, but I do have one that lives around these parts.

Do you like her?

Sure, I like her well enough. Sometimes, though, it’s complicated. You expect something from each other, yet more importantly, you feel something for each other. She works on that shape, and I work on that tough guy figure. Good thing I work at that car job—for now. I’m in the twelfth grade. She’s an eleventh grader. She’s staying in school, but I’m almost graduated. Should I stay for her? I don’t know. Who knows? Chase sighs, rolling his eyes around but halting them once they reach the ground. College, yeah. I may not go.

What? the stranger asks. Why wouldn’t you?

I suppose it’s because I’m too arrogant. Eighteen years in the same place makes me arrogant. I want to shake loose from the whole system. You see, after the end of high school, the time long dreamed of as being the end of school, there comes college. Then after college comes a job. Soon after this is usually a family. It’s only when retirement comes that anyone gets the break they enjoyed as a child before the whole thing started. I want to have an adventure before I’m too old to do so.

No college could ground you for the rest of your life.

Well, I’ve thought of that. I wouldn’t have to do so much college and could be a farmer, but that’s completely out of the question for me. Maybe I’ll enroll into college once I’ve had my adventure for a year or so. I’d only be a simple mind anyway if I just followed the crowd. I might wind up at some desk job that I’d hate for the rest of my life. That’s why I’m going to do it this summer.

Do what?

I’m going to take a trip across the United States. It’s going to be great. Have you ever seen Mount Rushmore, the Statue of Liberty, or Yellowstone Park?

No.

"Neither have I. But I’m going