Take-out scented the car. I recognized no landmarks other than the setting sun. My stomach growled − empty, I believed the daystar set in the east, and that I was headed south. A blur of strollers and swings, hayfields, signs for the northbound highway. My tires screeched a U-turn. I thought of peasants in medieval Europe. They hurried home on market days. Night meant highwaymen, wolves. My journey was a kiddie ride − shadows, cicadas, a memory of Hansel’s breadcrumb trail. I thought of my parents and the enormous map that guided us cross country in our ’58 Chevy. Mother kept the map open in her lap, assembled SPAM sandwiches. Father never drove after sunset. I had a cell phone and a GPS unit. But I was giving intuition a few more miles. I wanted to remember how people found their way.
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