"A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step." -Confucius



Day One: June 23, 2000 Richland, Washington

The blaring of the alarm clock jerks Kai awake. He sits up from his position on the floor and regards a dark, empty room. The emptiness of the room speaks nothing of what Kai feels inside, however. No, he is not empty. For the first time in a long time, he feels ALIVE. With a surety of purpose, he stands and stretches, and regards the awesome task before him.

All the preparations are complete- he has quit his job, put the vast majority of his possessions in storage, and gotten his affairs in order. All that remains is to actually undertake the Journey.

Half an hour later, he is showered, shaven, and dressed. Slowly and methodically, he takes what remains of his possessions and packs them into his Impala. Three guitars, an amplifier, some electronics gear, and his clothes. He closes the doors to the old Chevy and returns to the nearly empty house.

Strewn about the place is the various detritus that accumulates only when people are either moving into or out of a house. Various meaningless scraps of paper litter the floor, deep impressions still remain in the carpet from where Kai's massive stereo system sat immovable for over a year, and piles of food-caked dishes sit moldering in the sink. Kai makes one last sweep through the house, ensuring that nothing has been left behind; sure that his preparations are complete, he takes one last look at the house he's lived in this past year, and one last look down the hall at Jeff's closed door. He and his best friend have already said their goodbyes, so with one last sigh Kai bids him a silent farewell.

Stepping out into the morning daylight, Kai closes the door gently behind him, steps into his '69 Impala, closes its door, and turns the ignition. The powerful engine rumbles into life, and Kai listens closely, waiting for any sound of reticence from the machinery. Satisfied with its operation, he puts the car in drive and does a u-turn on the empty road.

Headed for the highway, he again contemplates the enormity of what he's about to do. This is a day he has awaited for time beyond reckoning- the day when he begins a journey that will undoubtedly change his life irrevocably, whether for good or ill. "Finally," he whispers to himself.

As the Impala glides down the road, its driver smiles faintly. He does not look back once.

The next several hours he spends in silent contemplation, thinking only of what lies before him. For once, Kai is more preoccupied with the future than the past. It is that moment of meeting that he speculates most about: what will she be like? What will she think of me? Can this really, finally be happening?

The only sounds he hears are the rush of the wind, the song of the engine, and the tires against the pavement. For now, it is enough. For now, it is all he could ever want.

Washington State slips behind his tires at last, and he cries out in triumph, shaking his fist in the air. It is a momentary "victory" however, that slips away as soon as he realizes that less than one tenth of his journey is done...

Idaho disappears behind him hours later, and Kai enters Montana for the first time ever. Within an hour of entering the state, he notices that his car has become more and more difficult to control, weaving back and forth within his lane, threatening to slalom out of control around every corner. Kai blames the poor condition of the Montana highways, for they are indeed the worst he has ever seen, with potholes big enough to live in and cracks like miniature canyons running through the asphalt. As the soothing sounds of Led Zeppelin fill the car, he finds it is taking more and more of his concentration just to stay on the road.

There are other things he is noticing about highway travel, particularly the suicidal patterns prevalent among the other people on the road with him. Frustration builds within him as the hundredth Dodge Ram sets itself six inches off the rear end of his car for the hundredth time... he flips the driver the bird as he finally passes Kai's Impala.

Bored by the bland Montana landscape, Kai plays mental games to keep himself occupied. He sorts the cars he sees into categories, discovering a strange correlation between driving behavior and the type of car driven.

Dodge Rams and similar large pickup trucks are driven by ASSHOLES, defined best by their suicidally high rate of speed and habit of tailgating whoever "gets in their way". Each time he sees a Ram, Kai feels deep seated rage begin to build within him, and for the umpteenth time wishes for the collapse of society so that he can begin to kill at will... he swears to himself that being an incurable shithead must be a prerequisite to Ram ownership.

Honda Accords and similar four door sedans are seemingly driven according to their color. Black, green, red, blue, and silver sedans are driven in much the same manner as the Rams- much faster than their laughable double-digit horsepower engines should be pushed, and with sharper degree of turning than their puny suspensions were designed for. Gold, white, and brown sedans are driven in an equally infuriating manner- these are the fuckheads who drive nearly twenty miles per hour BELOW the speed limit, in the fast lane, and pay no attention whatsoever to where they are driving.

Minivans are driven by, simply put, FUCKING IDIOTS. No minivan driver Kai sees seems to be capable of even the most basic of driving principles- that of staying within one's lane. Veering from side to side, lane to lane, they hit their brakes for no apparent reason, leave turn signals on, and drive at the slowest rate of speed possible. Each minivan he passes, he finds the same thing- a driver whose attention is raptly focussed on anything BUT the road. Each minivan he passes, he pictures increasingly imaginative and excruciatingly prolonged deaths that he can inflict upon its occupants...

Kai's fantasy of slowly stripping the flesh from a cellular phone jabbering, minivan driving, mullet wearing moron until he begs for the sweet release of death is interrupted by the strange sound emanating suddenly from the engine compartment: a strange ticking noise that varies as his speed varies. Oh, fuck, he thinks to himself. Please don't let that be my engine going to shit!

It takes Kai almost an hour of driving in intense fear of his car's apparent imminent self-destruction before he arrives at Missoula. Reducing speed to enter the "city", the ticking sound gets worse...

Pulling into a gas station, and opening the hood, Kai has to step back from the intensity of the heat emanating from the V-8. He leaves the hood open as he fills up on gas, then checks the oil when the dipstick is finally cool enough to not burn his fingers.

The oil level is well below the add line. Well, no shit, Sherlock, Kai reproaches himself. It helps the engine out a LOT when it has OIL in it, jackass!

He buys four quarts of oil and dumps them in, one right after the other. The engine sucks down the oil greedily, like a starving baby. While engaged in his bit of "preventative maintenance", an SUV blaring loud ghetto music pulls into the gas station lot. Four teenagers pile out of the car and begin chattering inanely amongst themselves. The rap music thumps equally as inanely across the parking lot: "Chiiiildreeeeeennnnn... of the gheeettoooooooo... hooold onnnnnnn... "

"Shee-it," Kai laughs. The nearest fucking ghetto to this hole in the dirt is two states away, for Christ's sake! he thinks to himself.

He allows the engine to cool off for another twenty minutes before finally resuming his journey. With satisfaction he notes the ticking noise has disappeared totally, and his car is in excellent shape once again.

It has been an extremely long day, most of it spent in Montana; Kai marvels at the size of this mostly empty piece of land, understanding why it's called "Big Sky County". After twelve hours of seeing nothing but dirt, sagebrush, and plains, the sky is a welcome diversion. All ten CD's of the Led Zeppelin anthology, played back to back, and STILL he is driving through the same fucking state.

The sun begins to set as Kai finally, fucking FINALLY, exits Montana. The improvement in the condition of the highway is almost instantaneous as he enters Wyoming, but his car is still difficult to control for some reason... noticing ruts in the right hand side of the road, he blames that for his car's skittishness. Driving in the left lane solves the problem, for the most part.

The bland, flat, empty landscape of the northeastern corner of Wyoming begins to wear at him. Boredom and exhaustion do their work on his concentration, until finally he calls it a day. Pulling into a small town that is essentially nothing but a huge truck stop, he stops for the night. After attending to certain biological necessities (for the truly curious, taking a dump), and making an important phone call, he settles into the front bench seat of the Impala and goes to sleep. The day which started for him at 5:30 in the morning has finally ended, some 1000 miles and seventeen hours later.


Day Two: June 24, 2000 Sheridan, Wyoming

It is the most intense rainstorm Kai has ever been in, and it is keeping him awake. Thunder crashes just outside his passenger window, the lightning streaks against the insides of his eyelids, and the rain smashes against the roof of the Impala like bullets from a thousand Tommy guns. Eventually, he gives up on getting any more sleep and steps out into the driving storm. After attending to certain biological necessities (for the truly curious, taking a piss), he climbs back into the warm and blessedly DRY interior of the Impala, starts it, and makes his way through the dark, rainy morning.

The day wears on. Night finally gives way to dark morning, and the rain continues to fall torrentially. Kai's Impala is increasingly difficult to control on the rain-slick roadway, and several times he comes close to losing it altogether. Two hours later, he enters western South Dakota, and eventually the torrential downpour slows to a regular downpour, then to a trickle, then a drizzle, and finally nothing.

South Dakota is more boring than Kai had ever imagined. Seeing a roadsign of any kind is a momentous event, and he drives for dozens of miles before seeing any evidence of human habitation other than telephone poles and highway roads. He spends eight hours in this incredible monotonous excuse for a state, wishing for ANY sort of break from the humdrum of this mind-numbingly dull drive.

It is in the eighth hour that he gets what he so foolishly wished for. Without warning, a familiar thumpthumpthumpthumpthump begins, and Kai (correctly) identifies the sound as a blown tire. Pulling off to the side of the highway, he gets out and looks at the passenger side front tire: flat as Kate Moss. He had been half expecting such an occurrence, and it comes as no surprise to him; what DOES surprise him is the utter calm with which he simply goes to the trunk, gets the spare and the jack, and without cursing or jumping up and down with anger changes the tire. The original tire is little more than shredded strands of rubber feebly held together by the radial bands within; he wonders what could have done this to his tire, and dismisses it as a random blowout.

The spare is not aired up all the way, so carefully he drives to the next service station and airs it up. Then a thought occurs to him: he now has no spare tire. He has another spare tucked away in the trunk, but it has no air in it. He decides that it would behoove him to air up the second spare, lest he be stranded out in the middle of bumfuck nowhere like this place. So he airs up the second spare.

The wisdom of this precautionary measure is demonstrated to him less than half an hour later, when, driving on the highway as normal, to his incredulity ANOTHER tire blows out.

It is at this point that Kai begins swearing, pointing middle fingers at the sky, and all other manner of obscene conduct that doubtless provides endless entertainment to the high speed passersby. Thankfully, though, the second spare is in good order. The DRIVER'S side front tire has blown out this time, with a peculiar wearing away of the inner surface of the tire. Still uncomprehending of the cause of this blowout, or the previous one, Kai begins cursing the state of South Dakota with every R-rated word that comes to mind.

The next service station finds Kai discovering from a helpful mechanic that his front end is seriously out of alignment, and the spares that he has on the car will not hold out for long. So, Kai shells out a hundred bucks for new tires and ignores the mechanic's admonition to get the alignment fixed before driving again. He has only five hundred miles remaining in his journey, and no time for such nonsense. Besides, the mechanic doesn't do alignment jobs, so the point is moot anyway.

Frustrated with the two hour delay inherent in waiting for the mechanic to finish his previous job, fetch new tires for the Impala, and change them, Kai looks at his car and growls at it angrily, "Just get me the FUCK out of South Dakota. I don't care what else you do, just get me out of this FUCKING state!"

Two hours later, Kai does indeed finally get out of Fucking South Dakota, and cheers with even greater depth of emotion than when he left Washington.

The next six hours are uneventful enough- Iowa and Nebraska slip past with barely any fanfare. It is when the sun begins to set, and Kai enters Missouri, that things begin to get frustrating again.

Much could be made of Kai's ensuing fruitless search for a hotel room anywhere within thirty miles of Kansas City. We could discuss the three hours spent in that fruitless search, the endless circles he drives in, the hour he spends completely lost and screaming at the top of his lungs, "WHERE THE FUCK AM I? GODDAMN I HATE FUCKING KANSAS CITY!!!" We could even dwell upon the episode where Kai storms into a fleabag hotel, takes his roadmap and slams it against the partition glass, and seethes belligerently, "Where on this map can I find a fucking hotel that ISN'T completely sold out?!?"

We could describe such things in their excruciating, rage-filled detail. Suffice it to say that after three hours, half a tank of gas, and a thousand repetitions of the mantra, "FUCK KANSAS CITY!" Kai at last finds a hotel room in central Missouri. After one final, calm-inducing phone call, Kai at last drifts off to sleep... but instead of dreaming, he remembers...


Day One: August 9, 1995 Burbank, Washington

His mother had asked him countless times why he "needed" to go. Kai had told her she wouldn't understand. And indeed she would not. If he told her the truth, he would end up in a padded room doped up on Thorazine, and likely spend a good portion of the rest of his life there.

So he told her nothing. He got into his Nova, started it, and drove away. He did not know if he was ever coming back. Time would tell.

Headed for the highway, he again contemplated the enormity of what he was about to do. This was a day he had awaited for time beyond reckoning- the day when he began a journey that would undoubtedly change his life irrevocably, whether for good or ill. "Finally," he whispered to himself.

As the Nova glided down the road, its driver smiled faintly. He did not look back once.

The next several hours he spent in silent contemplation, thinking only of what lay before him. For once, Kai was more preoccupied with the future than the past. It was that moment of meeting that he speculated most about: what will she be like? What will she think of me? Can this really, finally be happening?

The only sounds he heard were the rush of the wind, the song of the engine, and the tires against the pavement. For now, it was enough. For now, it was all he could ever want.

He was going back, to the one place he ever felt able to call Home. And he was going back to Her, to the one person who ever dared to love him in return.

Six hours went by, with the drab, dreary desert of the east giving way to the lush forests of the west. At last, the city of six years ago appeared before him, the one place he felt he had belonged, if only so very briefly. It was amazing how little the city had changed; it was as if he had stepped back in time six years!

He drove to his old elementary school, and got out of the car. It was here that his memories were forged, and this place too had remained exactly the same. The empty, silent halls still held an echo of his past- of triumphs, of failures, of pleasure and pain. Most of all, they rang sullenly with the innocence he had lost, which he was only now desperately trying to recapture.

Out behind the school was The Playground, where only seven years ago he had finally won respect... even as he LOST something even more precious. Now, the deserted playground stood as a poignant metaphor for the chaos within him- his mind was like this playground, a place with all the children, all the innocence, hopelessly lost...

He left behind the old elementary school, and did not look back.


Day Two: August 10, 1995 LOCATION CLASSIFIED

He waited for her outside her workplace. Anticipation was almost more than he could bear, but he waited patiently nonetheless. After six years, he could afford to be patient.

A car pulled up, and She got out. Kai got out of his Nova to greet her, but as he turned to look upon her he saw that something was sadly, irrevocably wrong. She was not the same person he had left behind six years ago. That indefinable spark in her eyes, the light of vast wisdom, sharp wit, deep intelligence, shining life, boundless love, and infinite understanding, was irretrievably gone. Whatever gifts the exuberant young girl had once had were lost somewhere during those six years, and the result was that the exuberant young girl had become a tired, defeated young woman.

Kai looked at Kizzy, and knew that she'd died a long, long time ago.

They talked briefly, with the only emotion she displayed being one of honest curiosity. Whatever they had once had was not only gone, it was as if it had never been. For she had all but forgotten him. To Kai, with his perfect memory, this made it all the more painful. He asked her to dinner, and she declined, saying that she couldn't find a babysitter on such short notice. The word BABYSITTER bounced through Kai's mind like a .22 bullet as he looked at her: she, barely an adult herself, now mother of a two-year old child.

It was more than he could take. Kizzy, whom he'd once loved more than anything or anyone in the world, was for all intents and purposes dead and gone. Those things that had drawn him to her those many years ago had vanished into the permanence of the past, never to be seen in the flesh again.

He politely took his leave of her, got in his car, and left the city of his youth behind forever. He could never return, he knew... and he would never find home again...


. . . Kai wakes, returned to the present, and the promise of the future.


Day Three: June 25, 2000 Omak, Missouri

Today is the day. It is on this day that he will know at last whether this will be a repeat of his bleak history, whether this will be another supreme letdown like his return to Kizzy, or whether it will be the start of a new, brighter chapter in his life. He has hope this time though, more hope than he had ever thought possible, and for once he feels as if everything is finally going to be all right.

Across Missouri Kai drives, with each mile he passes increasing his anticipation a thousandfold. Five hours later, when he finally reaches the end of his journey, the long awaited moment brings them together at last...

Kai pulls up in his Impala and sees her there, sitting on her porch. He gets out of the car and walks up to her, and it is when he sees her that Kai KNOWS. He is finally home.

Kai and Sabina embrace out on the front lawn of the apartment. For several long moments they remain that way, until finally, smiling at one another, they walk into the apartment hand in hand.

Each journey has its end, but at the end of each journey begins yet another. It is with the ending of this journey that Kai begins anew... reborn into a life of laughter, happiness, and love.

For the asshole has finally found his home.