The Weary Traveler (part 1)

I’m going to tell you a story.

You are alone in you car and it is deep into the night. The radio has lost it’s signal you hear nothing but static. It’s been a while since you’ve seen any road signs but you know you are up in one of the plains states, maybe Nebraska or Montana, far from anywhere in particular. You know this because that is where your trip has taken you, as you’ve known for some time it would. You also know this because as far as you can see in any direction there is nothing. It is as if the night itself has become a living breathing thing surrounding you, only parting reluctantly for the white arc of your headlights and glow of red behind. You realize how much you have come to need this car. If it were to fail, if a fuse blew and the lights were to go out… there would be nothing left but darkness.
After some time off, in the distance you see a glow. At first it’s nothing more than a slightly different shade of black, but then it becomes something more, a glowing line on the horizon. You’ve no doubt now there is some sort of place ahead and as you approach you see that it is of all things, a dinner, small and long with a row of windows unending from one corner to the next, and out of these windows issues light. Maybe it is just your eyes adjusting after so long in the dark, but this light seems almost brighter, more golden, than any you have ever seen. There are people inside and although it is not time to eat you know it is time to stop. You find that you’re more anxious to be in this place than you’re been to be anywhere in a long long time.
As you park and walk inside you see that the place is full of people. It’s immediately clear that you’re going to have to sit with someone else. Normally you wouldn’t do such a thing, but that’s just what you begin to do and as soon as you pull the chair back you know, you can feel that they have all done just the same thing. None of these people knew or cared about each other before tonight.