Late at Night, Listening to Bob Dylan on Headphones the Size of Two Small Planets

Hello, how are you? I am fine. It is about to strike one AM here in Boise, Idaho. Did you know Boise is William Shakespeare's birthplace? True story. Raised on sand dune buggy races and forest fires, Bill grew up a free spirit among these fine hill people. He liked to jog along the Green Belt and stumble into beehives and get stung thusly and though it brought him pain, it also brought him fame. At least, locally. For a time he was a volunteer cat juggler and then, one horrible day, he dropped a tabby and it broke his spirit. And so, he drifted. Like a balloon. Like a balloon filled with words, and love, and King Richards. Untethered, he found himself West Coast bound, wearing handkerchiefs on his head and babbling about Sudan. The dead haunted him, and so he wrote little "plays" in which they played sizable roles. Of course he was immediately branded a genre writer for his efforts, but then again people have always been frightened by what they understood far too well. And so we find him, sitting outside the entrance to Powell's City of Books, begging change off the out of state bookworms. Until one day, a lad from Minnesota tells him the only true change comes from within. He thinks about this for a day, a week. He stands and stretches and devours the Portland fog, drinking it down like moisture salvation. A girl named Juliet steps out of the mist and asks for a smoke, and so he sets himself on fire. She likes the way he rolls, so they stroll hand in hand as they strike out for Texas. A state so big it can swallow anything, even Houston. They walk and walk and walk, and then they walk some more. At night they make camp and have fantastic sex beneath the stars. Will thinks all this over. He keeps writing his pulp fiction. He remembers Boise, the shiny downtown wherein he once dwelt. He understands why Adam took that apple from Eve. He wasn't tricked. He knew what he was getting himself into. Sometimes he lays for hours watching Juliet sleep, and one day he wakes too late and finds she has left him for some dickweed named Romeo. True love, and all that. But what is truth? He remembers his father telling him that truth could be felt in the center of the heart, a glowing amber in the core. He feels his heart through his chest and comes to understand that he is alive and that his love is not like the love of others. It is out there, in the desert. So he keeps walking. He is bitten by a rattlesnake. He pours ink into the wound and keeps walking. He makes it to Texas. There are numerous RV parks and Bud Light signs. Outside of Odessa he meets a band named ZZ Top and their thunder fills the atmosphere. They ask him what he does, and he says he writes. They invite him to go on tour with them, and he accepts. Before he boards the tour bus he throws away everything he's written so far and looks up at the sky. It's a clear, beautiful Texas day. His skin tingles. He knows that his destiny lies somewhere down the road, but he's in no hurry. It's all good.