You miss the open space of the United States. You miss being able to drive an hour to where you look off the road and see nothing but farm-lands and feed corn growing higher than a man can stand. You miss looking at the tiny house made of dirty white boards with a tractor out front and wondering who lives there. Wondering if he’s always lived there. Wondering if seeing a sky that open every morning makes you into a different kind of man than you’d be otherwise.
From the two-lane-highway as you pass by you will think about what it would be like to stand down there in that grown corn field in that breezy fall air and let your arms rest at your sides. You will think about what the smooth stalks and the rough leaves would feel like on the tips of your fingers. You will think about what the wind would sound like from down there, in the middle of it all.
Then, just once, without thinking about it and like it wasn’t your choice, you will pull onto the shoulder and stop the car and get out and go and see for yourself. You will feel stupid and awkward and strange and when a car passes while you’re walking down you’ll make sure they can’t see your face and you'll be relieved when they don't slow down or stop. It will not at all be how you imagined it. You will be afraid to walk in and then afraid to walk in too deep because you don’t want to get lost and also because you can’t see what else is in there. What could be in there? Nothing. Still, you feel uncomfortable, and you keep spinning around to check.
After a while you relax, just a bit, and decide to lie down. It is colder outside than you thought and the ground is a little bit damp but it is already too late and the seat of your pants are probably muddy. You lean back and first clasp your hands over your stomach but then put them behind your head and look up at the sky and the way the sun is coming through some heavy clouds. It’s later than you thought it was. There will be flies and they will be incredibly annoying—you won’t have imagined them at all because you only imagine flies when it's hot and sticky outside. Swatting won’t do anything and they will make your skin feel itchy even when they’re not there.
At one point a swallow will fly by overhead and then another chasing the first and you will be amazed by how fast they move and turn and dive. You will close your eyes for less than a minute, but then open them and look around again and check that nothing changed while they were closed. You will get bored but not want to be bored and the flies will keep bugging you. You will be chilly and decide the ground is definitely wet and you will sit up and bring your knees to your chest and stay like that for a while. Then you will decide you have to pee and you will stand up and look around another time before you unzip your pants. After, you will shake it superfluously, then you won’t really want to sit back down again but you won't be ready to go so you will stand there another moment and then decide to leave, not having found whatever you were looking for. You will walk back out and feel embarrassed and ashamed and will never tell another soul what you did because they, like you, will not understand. You will unlock the car and drive away.
