At this time of morning, Creek Bend, Wisconsin was peaceful and still.  It was difficult to imagine that almost nine thousand people lived in the city when only a handful of vehicles roamed the quiet streets.

Most of the time, Eric liked being out when it was like this, but today there was a peculiar eeriness to the silent city.  Something about the empty sidewalks and darkened buildings made him uneasy.  It was as if he were walking through a graveyard instead of driving beneath bright streetlamps.

Although he told Karen that he might be gone a couple hours, he’d expected to be home in no more than fifteen or twenty minutes.  He thought that he might merely circle the block a few times, or at most make his way across town to the shopping center and turn around.  Unable to find whatever his troubled mind was seeking, he assumed he would quickly be resigned to return unfulfilled, though hopefully much less obsessed with traveling.  Instead, being behind the wheel felt remarkably right.  And soon he found himself driving south on the highway, leaving Creek Bend behind him.

He assumed the feeling would simply dissipate as he drove, that it would fizzle out as mysteriously as it had come to him, and then he’d be able to return to his home and his wife and be done with it.  But the urge to drive only grew stronger as he made his way south, passing one town after another, until he came to the interstate.  There, he felt compelled to take the onramp and proceed west.

It was about now that he began to wonder what he would do if this strange compulsion to drive overcame him to such a degree that he found himself irresistibly drawn right out of Wisconsin and into Illinois or Iowa or Minnesota.  What if the approaching day found him cruising through Missouri or Nebraska or Indiana?  What if wherever his subconscious mind was trying to take him wasn’t even in the Midwest?  Or what if it didn’t exist at all?

A chill raced through him as he imagined himself helplessly driving on and on and on.  He supposed that, eventually, Karen would kill his credit cards and he’d run out of money for gas.  But would he then simply get out of the car and walk?

It was an eerie thought, and one he promptly pushed out of his head.

He was not crazy.

It was just a damn dream.  That was all.

It was probably something psychological, something that he’d forgotten, perhaps, bubbling up to the surface through vivid dreams that were too complex for him to remember upon waking.  The result was an irrational compulsion to seek something that wasn’t really there.

That sounded reasonable.  He guessed.  He was no psychologist, but it seemed like a fairly sound explanation.  It was at least something.  It was better than crazy.

One exit sign after another passed by in his headlights as he made his way ever farther from home.  Even long after he made up his mind to forget this ridiculous nonsense and turn around, he kept passing perfectly good exits.  On and on he drove until, more than three hours after leaving Karen and Creek Bend behind, with the sun peeking over the eastern horizon, he at last switched on his turn signal and drifted into the exit lane.

Yet he still did not turn around.  Instead, he cruised on down a little two-lane road that wove through countless acres of cornfields and cow pastures, ever farther from home.

After a while, he turned off this road, onto a narrow strip of blacktop that was far overdue for resurfacing, and drove for several more miles before turning onto yet another two-lane country road.

A loud buzzing rose from his lap as his cell phone began to vibrate enthusiastically in his front-left pocket.  He didn’t often get calls on his phone, and as such, the vibration usually surprised him, sometimes provoking him into using some of his favorite expletives.  But it did not startle him this time, as he was just thinking that Karen should be calling to find out exactly where the hell he’d gone.  Instead, it was the physical act of wrestling the phone from his pocket as the seatbelt fought to hold it in place that made him curse.

Like countless times before, he swore that one of these days he was simply going to throw the stupid thing away.

“You need to wrap up this booty call and get your ass back home,” Karen said when he’d finally freed it from his pocket and pressed it to his ear.

“Sorry.  You know how I like to snuggle after.”

“No, you like to snore after.”

“Right.  I always get those two mixed up.”

“Where are you?”

“Not sure, to be honest.”

“You’re not sure?”

“I’m not sure,” he said again.  “I see cornfields and a lot of cows.”

“Quaint.  Did you get lost?”

“Nope.  I know the way home.”  Or he thought he knew the way home, at least.  “I just don’t know where I am, exactly.  I’m pretty sure I’m still in Wisconsin.”

“Pretty sure?”

“Yeah.  Pretty sure.”

Eric checked his mirrors to be sure he was still alone on the road.  He didn’t like using the cell phone any time, but least of all while driving.  It pissed him off when he saw other drivers using theirs.  But there was no shoulder and he had no intention of parking in somebody’s driveway just to talk to his wife.

“You do know you’re acting like a complete nut job, don’t you?”

“Yes I do.”

“You know a lesser woman would be really freaked out by now.”

“I know she would.  I’m so lucky.”

“Yes you are.”

“I’m probably just having the world’s weirdest mid-life crisis or something.”

“You’re too young to have a mid-life crisis.”

“Third-life crisis?”

“Besides, aren’t you supposed to buy a motorcycle or an expensive sports car or something?  I was looking forward to shopping for the car.”

“We still can.  We can both have mid-life crises.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.  You know the women in my family stop aging at twenty-nine.”

“Oh yeah.  I keep forgetting about that.  Funny math in your genes.”

“It’s called ‘aging gracefully.’”

“My mistake.”

“So are you coming home anytime soon?”

“I hope so.”

“When?”

“When I’m done.  Just trust me, okay?”

“You know I do.”

“Good.”

“But I warn you, if I have to eat lunch by myself I’m ordering delivery.”

“Knock yourself out.”

“Ooh.  Fun.”

“I can’t explain it, but this feels right somehow.  I think it may be working.”

“‘Nut job crazy’ is working?”

“I think it is.”

“Cool.”

But if he were to be completely honest, he had no idea if this was really working or not.  He’d assumed that he’d find himself with no idea where he wanted to go and therefore the compulsion would fade, but the farther he drove, the more it seemed to pull at him.  He was beginning to wonder if there might be some specific place he was being drawn, though he could not fathom why he’d have any kind of subconscious desire to come here.  He’d never been in this part of Wisconsin before.

“If nothing else, maybe it’s the road that’s good for me.  Maybe I’m just overdue to take a nice long drive to clear my head.”

“If you say so.”

“I do.  Did you start the cake?”

“I did.  It’s cooling.  I’m starting my pies while I wait.”

“What kind?”

“Strawberry.”

“Yum.”

“I miss you.”

“I miss you too.”

“Call me soon?”

“Sure.  Love you.”

“Love you too.”

Eric said goodbye and ended the call.  Ahead of him, the country road stretched on and on, ever deeper into the open farmlands.  Cornfields turned to soybean fields and then back to cornfields again.  Cattle herds occasionally shared the fields with horses and sheep and goats.  Little patches of forestland cropped up from time to time, along with neatly planted apple orchards and even a Christmas tree farm, all punctuated with various farmhouses and barns and silos.