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If you reach for your keys in your grocery apron turn to page 10
If you remain reclined reading Rumi in a state of unrequited anxiety turn to page 15
You drive west for two hundred miles. Everything looks the same. The same cars, the same fast food at the same rest stops. Except the trees. The trees shift from Pine to White Oak , the soil shifts from sand and needles to grass and shrubs; you start to feel suffocated by the illusion of choice. On the side of the highway is a man waving a hand that is missing two #ngers, a blindfold covers his eyes. You pick him up. You don’t have a choice, do you? The man enters the car. As he enters the sound of cicadas acts as interlude soundtrack before the man asks if you accept story as payment. You do — and agree to drive the man wherever he needs to go. The highway spills out before you and a sensation akin to dread spreads through you as the man turns down the radio and begins his story.