FICTION
"...So I just walk, cutting my feet on the loose rocks and trailing blood on the leaves. I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t know why I’m going. Maybe I’m going to climb to a peak and keep climbing until I’m among the stars, if any of these things are really there. Maybe I want to stand in the abyssal sky and offer myself up to the cosmos, to let it look at me and find out what it sees...."
"... I make my approach to Garney in the afternoon, but it’s dark enough to turn my lights on, a thorough sheet of gray cloud between me and the sun. A thick fog is rolling through the hills and between the firs and spruces and sugar maples, saturating everything. The gray mist makes the place look haunted, which isn’t hard to imagine. Garney isn’t just small, it’s half empty. Make that 58% empty with its 45 abandoned houses rotting quietly in the hills. Garney may not be a ghost town, but sometimes it felt that way. Still does...."