Brian Eckert

This story published in Soft Cartel

                         I.

Greg was driving out West because he was out of ideas.

He passed through a long stretch of nothing but golden fields and the occasional billboard. Roads crisscrossed the fields, perfectly straight.

The plains appeared endless. Greg felt he was falling farther back, back into the plains. He was certain that if he turned down any one of the long, straight roads he would drive on forever

Greg’s great, great grandparents from Germany had been farmers in Kansas. The Old World must have been truly intolerable to them to make these abysmal plains a better prospect.

The Europeans who populated America hadn’t been looking for “freedom” or a “better life.” They were simply tired of the ways of their forebearers. America might be better than the Old World, or it might not. It might even be worse. But at least going there represented a break with tradition.

Greg felt like the mere outcome of historical forces. In driving West he sought to escape his past. Yet he was only going deeper into it.

There truly was nothing new under the sun. Out here in the plains one understood this, viscerally. One was naked before self, history, and god in the plains.

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