Deserts of Vast Eternity

("Postcards from Nowhere")

Work, eat, sleep, drive, work. I decided to take a day off after one straight month of seven ten hour days a week. Saturday. I went to the record store I had worked in once. It felt odd to be in the world again, not surrounded by hardhats and rednecks. I felt like one of those fellows who comes back from basic training to see his friends before he ships out. Nothing is the same.

I had called Abby a couple of times but hadn't gone to see her. I decided to go.

Far away, over unfamiliar roads, I drove to her apartment. It was in a small town full of working people. There was an old town center, a short downtown street made of brick and depression era buildings. She lived upstairs above a store and was waiting for me when I got there.

She lived with another girl who was not there, and they had decorated the place with batik cloth and big pillows. The air smelled sweet with something, incense, yes, but other things, too. She did not look like the girl I knew at school. She wore a thin Indian cloth top and a big print pleated skirt that seemed to go with the apartment's cozy decor. I liked it all, but I felt awkward and out of place. There we were, two young working people, but I felt I had already taken a wrong turn. When she spoke, I was reminded of flowers and light breezes. When I heard my own voice coming back to me, I heard only a rough and dirty road. It was a terrible awakening there in the cool darkness. I stayed awhile, though it became painfully obvious that she had already outgrown me in the few weeks since we'd graduated, and when I knew it was time to leave, I thought to kiss her, but there was a warning in her eyes that I would take with me instead.

I drove home in the middle of the afternoon, my day off stretching out before me like Marvel's desert of vast eternity.