The tall and quiet Friend stands in the shadowed entryway, entranced by beauty as the gentle chords of the Vole Adjustrix' song wash over his soul. Knotted and buried chords of life force spring apart and release themselves in fresh harmonics of memory, delight, and tinges of regret. Tincture of horizon light, the call from the edge of the world at first morning seeps through his nerves like stardust paints dreams, and he cannot tell for a moment where he is, and whether he is a smile, a tear, or a dewdrop in some greening treasured grove of endless, pleasant trees...

As the song fades and the world reforms around him, he smiles again, blows the fairest Jen a quiet kiss through the open doorway, wrapped in a cloud of warm admiration, and turns to the giant Indian which stands ready, agleam in the moonlight, alive in the warmth of the parking lot.

A quiet, powerful sobbing rolls across the night, the thunder of a huge muffled engine, bringing visions of throbbing diesels on dark coastal passages to the minds of the happy crowd within. It rises to a burbling bellow briefly, dampens, take sup load, accelerates and fades as the great machine wends into the night along the endless road toward reality and the unknown...