Ever expanding, her world spreads from one focus, grows beyond the single room and its stack and catalog of contents.

She walks through the downtown, and it appears mostly business and industry. She’s obviously gone the wrong way, because there is, of course, the falafel stand. They make great gyros, and they don’t use too much tziki. She saw it, and the movie theater, and wasn’t there a Kinko’s down here, too?

Lily’s thoughts turn to campus, and the reason that she’s here. The job is sweet, and it’s an odd replacement position for a professor about to retire. They were able to get the position lined up early, so she could go ahead with the move and get on with her life. What a good thing, too. Staying in the Pacific Northwest would have been disastrous, at least for right now. She missed the redwoods and the rain. It was comforting, when giving or getting directions, to just say “drive toward the water,” and have people know to head west. Here, every direction was the same. Tabula rasa seemed more appropriate than ever, here on this flat spread of nothing but corn.

The corner stoplight was red, and as she waited, Lily realized that thinking about campus, the sanctuary from “before” and the shelter dividing “then” from “now,” had only made her think of home, and the past. Maybe this break wasn’t such a good idea. Maybe moving so far and making such a huge change in her life was more problematic than ever, because it was a definite demarcation of the departure. Now, no matter what memories she built here, she’d also always have to remember that moving here was an escape. Perhaps that burden was more than the calused knuckles and flattened shoulders of Lincoln, Nebraska could bear.

She crossed, and could see ahead more people walking by, and signs lighting up the twilight. She liked evening walks best. Her fair skin tended to burn, even in Autumn. Her contacts were hard, too—no one understood why she didn’t just switch to the disposable soft ones. The rigid lenses caused more glare in the sun. They also corrected her vision better than the soft ones, and helped keep her cornea in shape, since she had an astigmatism. She’d bought pair after pair of sunglasses, but couldn’t keep them longer than a month or so. She’d either sit on them in the car, breaking a temple, or lose them outright and never find them again.

It was good that Lucy had called. Her sister was such a wild child—ironic, calling her sister “child,” since Lucy had been first out of the womb by a margin of four minutes. They were fraternal, and the differences went so much deeper than appearance. While Lily had spent the last eleven years gathering college degrees, Lucy had followed the Dead, and then Phish, around the country. Then she’d waited tables in New Orleans for a year, putting on a nightly bondage-inspired fashion show as she walked up and down Bourbon Street, chains connecting her nipple rings to those of her roomate, like S&M siamese twins. Lily had only gone to visit Lucy once in Louisiana. There had been a popular culture conference, and some of Lily’s work on Babylonian and Mesopotamian goddesses had made its way into New Age and lesbian literature. The sisters had spent a fun weekend together, but each was overwhelmed by the other’s vocation and lifestyle.

Now Lucy was a stripper at a small place near Chicago. Their parents refered to her job as “the entertainment industry,” and mother would sometimes refer to “my daughter, the dancer,” but Lucy always said “stripper.” Lily thought her sister liked the notoriety and infamy that surrounded the term. Lily liked it, too, but she would never really admit that her sister… maybe not to anyone else, ever. It had taken so long for Lily to decide to stand up for herself, to defy the prescribed roles and expectations, that the power and delectable defiance offered by a word like “stripper” was too much of a temptation, some days. But old habits die hard.

Being a professor at a new college was exciting, and though it wasn’t stripping, it was still a performance and a role. The adjunct positions and the part-time instructorships were frustrating, but had prepared her well. It was nice to be in a new environment. The unfamiliarity of the surroundings were offset by the potential everything held. Each corner, each student, each passing hour was an opportunity. The time for lying dormant in a cocoon of family obligations and domestic guilt was over. She’d split the chrysalis and her wings were nearly dry.

At the next intersection, she finally reached the busier, commercial part of town. To the left, bars and trendy restaurants. To the right, movie theaters and dance clubs. She stood a moment, watching the people starting to cluster. It was a liminal moment. She felt like she was on the edge of something, as if at the beach and about to cross from sand to sea, or standing on a cliff’s edge, deciding if she should jump or turn back. She knew the ancient Celts considered these spaces and moments to be passageways between this world and the next. This is what gave the equinoxes power, as they evened the time of light and darkness, and created a liminal spot between the two. Here she stood, and somehow, there was a weight to the moment. She turned right.

Clustered around each entryway, a line of people waited to be entertained. The filmgoers were passive, waiting to absorb media. The dancers were active, and about the tension between performance and spectatorship. That beckoned her more. She gravitated toward them, but couldn’t quite join. The newness, of the place, of her role within it, and of these peoples’ lives—so young—made her hesitate. She watched from across the way, lingering overlong at stoplights, gazing into windows but peering in reality at the reflections that they captured. In one of these reflections, then, she saw something that she couldn’t just enjoy or ignore. She turned and looked at him as he turned the corner.

It was a big man, stumbling along the road. He appeared hurt, or lost, or both. She looked both ways and crossed the street. She hugged herself, arms crossed in front of her, holding her own upper arms just above the elbow. Her shoes make only a slight scuffing sound against the concrete as she picked up her pace. The man was just ahead, and leaning against a wall. She approached, slowly, but concern had crept into her eyes and face.

“Are you all right?”

The man did not respond, but he seemed to be making a noise like a sob. Lily came closer, and put out a hand. As she touched his shoulder, the man turned to face her.

“Oh.” Her voice dropped to a breathy whisper.

His face was wet, with sweat and tears, perhaps, and maybe sinus drip. His eyes were glazed over, and seemed unable to focus. He opened his mouth, and a sad sound, almost a moan, escaped. “Tiiiiiimmmm?”

She shook her head, withdrew her hand, brought it, clenched in a tight fist, to her mouth. “Oh my…” She bit her knuckle a moment, then cleared her throat and shook her head. “No. No sir. I’m not Tim. Are you lost? Are you looking for Tim?”

He closed his eyes a moment, then blinked slowly a few times. He seemed to be struggling to focus on her face.

“Kee…rah…?”

Lily shook her head. “I’m sorry. No. Do you… do you need some help?”

The man seemed to nod, and she could hear another sob escape… it was obviously a sob, a desperate but weak cry. This man was in trouble. She took hold of his arm, and pulled him upright from his leaning position.

“I’ll help you. Come with me. Let’s find someone who can help you, big fella.”