And freedom was what I found. Freedom from all ties, all possessions, everything personal. Personalities, I had come to believe, function only with respect to each other, never in a vacuum. And so here I was again, free, vacuous, seeking, miserable.

I had not grown.

I turned away from the building. The end of my journey lay only a few miles up the road. With my pack slung over my left shoulder and my cane supporting my weaker right side, I began to walk the final leg.

I heard my boot heels on the pavement, and they tapped out a different tune this time, one hesitant—syncopated almost—in its unevenness, in its pain and misery. I listened carefully though, and heard hope, and heard more hope with each footfall, with each tap of the cane. I was close to Sarah’s. I was so close I could smell her.

But the dawn was closer yet.

I don’t know how far I walked; only three cars had passed me when my feet first began to drag pebbles beneath them. I knew the sign, I felt the dawn, but I resisted it, tried to pick up my feet, but my body was just too heavy. I began to stumble. I knew, then, that I dare not act the fool; I had to prepare for the coming day and find a place to sleep. Someplace quiet, private, away from the sunlight.

On my right I noticed machinery, piles of sand and scrap lumber. A construction site. Farther on, a single light bulb burned in the eave of a new metal building, recently erected, with no sign of tenants. I left the main road and very carefully picked my way amid the carelessly strewn rubbish, looking for a way into the building. The steel doors were locked. I kept looking, my steps weaker, my cane indispensable, yet awkward as it slipped off unsteady pieces of debris and sank deeply into sand.

At the rear of the building sat a large square trash dumpster, dark blue, with a sheet-metal lid. I looked both right and left, could see no reasonable alternative—could see no alternative at all—so as the actual rose color appeared at the horizon, I quickly found a bit of broken ladder, set it sturdily next to the dumpster, climbed it and propped open the lid. The interior was dark and smelled of paint. There were pieces of wood, chunks of concrete, old rags and papers, dozens of squashed soda cans, an emptied ashtray. A drop cloth was bundled in the corner.

I threw in my cane, my pack, then gingerly, one leg over at a time, lowered myself inside, being careful of where I stepped. The drop cloth was stiff with dried paint, but pliable to a degree, and I maneuvered it into an appropriate position, then reached up and brought down the heavy lid.

Quiet. Peace. Darkness.