The streets were empty in the way small towns are empty after the last bar pretends to close. A cat crossed without hurry. A newspaper in a plastic bag sat at the end of a walk like a white stone. I did not take Maple all the way through town. I took the long way that becomes farm before you are ready, the way that smells like manure and wet dirt even in dry weeks.
The farm road arrived like a conclusion. Gravel. A ditch. Behind a barn whose paint had surrendered, missing shingles, tar paper shining in my one flashlight glance. No house light close enough to make a witness out of a window. A silo that had not been a silo in years, just a shape.
I did not make a speech about hobbies. I did not name what I was putting into the dark. I set the fire to eat what it had to eat. Close up, flame is only heat and a smell that lives in your hair. I watched until I knew it would take, until the van stopped being a vehicle and started being a problem for morning.
Then I walked, because I had not planned a second car, and planning was still a language I was pretending to speak.
The first miles were gravel that announced every step. I stayed in the ditch when I could, weeds wet on my calves, until the farm road became a thinner road with a painted line that had almost worn off. My shoes were city shoes. They said so with every stone. I took them off once, walked in socks, put them back on when the socks soaked through. Dignity is a luxury. Distance is not.
An hour in the dark is a long argument with yourself. Insects. Gravel under shoes that were not made for gravel. A truck that did not stop. I went into the ditch when headlights showed, weeds up to my knees, heart in my teeth, and the truck passed with a radio playing something with a drum that did not care about ditches.
I climbed out. I kept walking. The glow behind me became a rumor and then nothing. Night has a way of swallowing evidence if you give it distance.