“Oh, we’re definitely taking the long way home on this one. Even if we succeed, it’ll be generations before the emergency ends. I think we have to be at peace with that.” She leaned back and let her jacket fall back over bronze shoulders. “It’s that old saw: You strike your match and it gets blown out, so you strike the next one and that gets blown out too. And again and again, you keep lighting matches, and they keep getting blown out. But you gotta keep lighting them, right? Because you just don’t know which one is going to ignite the blaze.”
I thought about this. Then quietly I asked, “What if you run out of matches?”
She stared at me for a moment, then tossed her head back and howled laughter, her lips peeled, her teeth fangs, her tongue lapping at the sky, so insane and loud that it echoed over the unbounded landscape. When she finished this outburst, she happily threw up her hands.
“Eh, dude, you can’t take life too seriously…” Then she reached down to my sunburned knee and with a brutal sting plucked out a hair.
“Ow! Kate!” I swatted, but she was already pursing her lips to blow the tiny hair off the mountain.
“… No matter how cute you look in your little hiking shorts tonight.”
Then she sprang up, shouldered her pack, and started off down the trail, turning all the way around so she faced me. Descending backward over the rocky path, she held my eyes. I feared she’d trip and tumble over the side, but her boots were nimble over the dirt and stone. I picked myself up, pulled on my pack, and followed. At that moment I could have believed anything. As she leveled her demented smile at me and skipped backward in this unchoreographed vagabond dance, I could easily believe that each and every one of us carried this thing she had, a dormant seed of the wild within. I could believe that this great sickness would one day pass, and all our work would be clean and decent and caring. I could believe we would free ourselves of these mournful histories, that all our tears and sorrow would be given back to us, and though we walked these ruins now, we would begin again, and carry across impossible time the glory of this ancient and magnificent world.
More from the Author
A
BOUT THE
A
UTHOR
PHOTO BY MICHAEL AMICO
STEPHEN MARKLEY is the author of Ohio, which NPR called a “masterpiece.” He is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and his other books include the memoir Publish This Book and the travelogue Tales of Iceland.
www.SimonandSchuster.com/Authors/Stephen-Markley
@simonbooksA N
OTE ON THE
T
YPE
This book was set using Adobe Text Pro, a utilitarian text typeface designed by Robert Slimbach. This font takes its cues from post-Renaissance Baroque transitional types, and though it demonstrates a classical form, it’s versatility is a statement of contemporary design.
Also by Stephen Markley
OHIO
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2022 by Stephen Markley
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First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition September 2022
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.
ISBN 978-1-9821-2309-3
ISBN 978-1-9821-2311-6 (ebook)
For their edits and insights on early drafts of this book, the author would like to thank Stuart Roberts, Susan Golomb, Emily Simonson, Jonathan Evans, Dominick Montalto, Fatima Mirza, Jed Coen, Ben Phillipe, Robbie Orvis, Sarah Spengeman, and Hannah Markley.