Western Iowa. Predawn fall chill invading the car, silence except for the wheels' metronome over the highway's tar strips. Marbell is wide-awake and driving. Zed is sleepy-eyed, watching the first light melt over the horizon and pour slowly across the farms and farmhouses littering these hills.
A moment: It lasts maybe ten minutes. They’re quiet except for their breathing, which begins to fog the windshield. A yawning smile from Zed:
- Good morning. Where are we?
- Just past Des Moines.
- Let’s stop for coffee soon. Next exit?
- 20 minutes or so.
- Ok.
Quiet again. Mortality, sunrise: This is the day we unconsciously hoped would come yesterday, as daylight’s foreground retreated into night’s dark background. And as that dark recedes from this light, background becoming foreground again, the entire scene is bathed in a hopeful rose-orange glow.
We called it tomorrow then, and now it’s today.
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