We’re a long way from anywhere. This trip has taken us so far from what we were and what we’d known. And we didn’t know what we’d find when got wherever we were going. This was just an interlude.

I lean against the side of the Cougar at a rest stop just off the interstate. It's not one of those rest areas with a gas station and fast food and a gift shop and mini-vans of weary families. No, this is a wide gravel driveway, a few cockeyed and weathered picnic tables amid tangled weeds, and a cluster of wood-encased bathroom stalls. It doesn't seem the safest place at midnight, but I don't feel threatened. As a matter of fact, I feel almost tranquil. Cal's inside, taking care of urgent business, while I huddle in my jacket and wait and suck in the crisp air.

I exhale puffy cold clouds and gaze at the night's starry skies, clear and constant from here to the unseen horizon. My eyes rove and I try to pinpoint a familiar constellation, or determine whether the brighter gleams are planets. Or maybe I just want to catch a glimpse of God.

I imagine what a movie or a stage play means to us mortals; the planet earth is to God. We enter a theater for a predetermined length of time and sit and watch the story play out. Images flutter across us, drama or comedy, absurdity or farce, along the boards. And then it's done and we're outside and back to real life.

So God, in immortality and fathomless might, looks down upon this tiny speck of infected blue and white and watches our histories and destinies unfold like the two-hour escape we find behind the swinging doors. God as director goes for the improvisational. He views this massive mise-en-scene as it develops its own plots, it own ostensibly endless acts, scenes drawn out for decades, a billion character arcs, dramatic crescendos, comedic pratfalls, stirring tragedy. A script written to infinity.
Maybe God put us into production to alleviate his boredom. It’s his show - introductions, rising action, and a constant montage of climax and catharsis and eventual denouement. The billions of stories would be so effortless for God to follow but it boggles us.

I wonder if God has grown bored. Maybe he left the theater early. Maybe he became tired of our story. Here we are, abandoned and playing out our roles and no one cares. The seats are empty.

But a sliver of hope placates me - I picture him above. My intense anger has subsided. The death I’ve seen, numbed by pain, family now decaying in the ground, and me alone to carry on, almost seems another life. The homicidal fantasies that spun me to sleep for too long have receded – shredded Seraphim and impaled cherubs and Heaven’s golden cloud palaces afire against a sooty dark sky.
Could it be that out here where there is nothing and no one that I find what I need? My eyes rove the skies with a reverse twinkle.

God's resemblance is some vaguely humanoid shape but featureless - emotion without defined physical characteristics. I know, so many religions want to create the image of god in their way, but what do they know? Everyone is right while everyone else is wrong.
I imagine God trudges across expanses of void, the imprints of what would pass for God's feet leaving black holes in the fabric. He floats and hovers and throws a planet here, tosses a star there, two-finger-flicks a playful quasar over that way, with a comet or two in the mix to distill the monotony. God wants a light show and detonates a star and causes a nebula, tendrils of starlight seep across black. Who's to say he doesn't require entertainment? Being omnipotent could prove a lonesome gig in the grand scheme, no matter how many angels lick God’s perceived boots.

Cal comes out of the derelict facilities. He is hunched against the chill, hands thrust into his knee-length black coat. His junked cargo pants with a rip in the knee do not help to deflect the cold. "I wonder if the state sends out a clean-up crew even once a year." It's more statement than question. "No soap and cold water."

"You expected warm water, and soap, here?"

Cal opens the driver's side door. "People are disgusting. They need to learn not only how to aim, but how to flush. It took me five minutes to find the stall least festering with feces and disease."

“Lovely.”

Cal clambers behind the wheel and closes the door, starts it up again, and rapidly rubs his hands together. He revs the engine.

With a last glance straight up at the sky, I smile with a kind of contentment and slide into the car as the word "maybe" echoes in my head.

We lurch out of the gravel driveway and onto the Interstate. We’re off again. I twist in my seat to look at Cal. His eyes are focused straight ahead, the corner of his mouth upturned, and eyes with long lashes in slow blinks. He doesn’t even look over at me, but takes my hand in his, squeezes. I smile and look away, out at the road. There is something about this man I love so deeply, but it is something I cannot wholly define. He’s the penniless outsider, pure of spirit. He has nothing left to lose. He will help me find who I am again.

Cal’s foot steadily eases down on the gas pedal to the speed of light and we’re two taillights receding into the dark.

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