Day one

His journey began with a stop at the 24-hour doughnut shop. The apple fritters tasted best at 4 AM and here it was nearing 3:58. He stepped in and saw no fritters and thought to wait. The gaunt master of doughnuts behind the counter told no fritters would be coming his way anytime soon. He settled on a plain buttermilk and maple old-fashioned and continued on his way.

By 5 o'clock he had passed from the city into the outer suburbs. The doughnuts were long gone, though glimpses of maple still appeared in his mouth. Here there were trees, fences, cars in driveways. He saw a man delivering newspapers from his car and wondered whatever happened to the Schwinn. He stopped in a park for a sip from the drinking fountain. The water tasted fine, but he could not help thinking of all the dirty suburban kids that had put their mouths on the spigot. Maybe a doughnut would kill the germs.

The suburbs began to dissipate around him, then finally ended altogether. A wall signaled their end, and starkly at that. People lived on one side, weeds grew on the other. He thought of stopping to take a last look, but kept on ahead. Best to think of some things instead of doing them. A person sees the suburbs and no last look is going to change a damn thing about them.

At midday he stopped and chewed on some jerky out of his pocket. He imagined a wolf or bear or even a deer coming up and fighting him for it. Nothing and no one came anywhere near him just then. Nor did they the rest of the day in fact. A lonely bit of travel that day was, especially for a man who had no idea where he was going.

He thought maybe that would be the best part of his journey, an existential trip for the ages. He was wrong. With no destination and no company to keep, he was just meandering lonely for lonely meandering sake. But the doughnuts tasted nice and god bless to be out of those suburbs.