Paul steered his car along a dark stretch of Highway 24, heading home from a sales trip. A straight, level highway lengthened before him, a thin gray scratch across a landscape of shadows. The road cut through miles of pastures and open farmland devoid of human dwellings. A few rolling hills interrupted the flat monotony, and tree-lined creeks carved ribbons across the expanse. In the primordial darkness, absent of man’s probing lights and rationality, every light flared like a beacon, a candle flickering for the lost soul. Dash after yellow dash glowed like a spark from a fire before fading into the darkness that folded in behind him the way black curtains close off the stage at the end of a play. He had been driving for hours, trying to make time on an empty road. The words WAILING CREEK flashed in his headlights, emblazoned in reflective white across a green rectangle. Guardrails marked the bridge, and trees hugged the river banks, stripped of leaves by a relentless southwest wind.
