I took long, rapid strides in the early evening air, getting my energy up, pumping hot blood through my muscles. I breathed deeply and swung my arms. It felt good. The flush of freedom was beginning to come back again; maybe I had snapped the string that held me to Westwater, had finally outrun the magnetic influence.

The moon rose over the low hills; there was barely any traffic. The desert gleamed in the moon­shine. I walked down the middle of the deserted road, tapping out a pattern with my boot heels, feeling the light of the moon bathing me in its cool warmth as it gleamed off the wide stripe of road ahead. I imagined I was walking down a canal, clicking my heels along on top of the water.

My thoughts returned to Boyd. What made him so different from Lewis? I wasn’t thinking about individual differences, like hair color and tastes in furniture. I meant fundamental differences—the way I was different from my classmates, the way I was different from everybody else. Boyd had that differ­ence as well. He and I were different from each other, yet there was some common . . . there was something similar . . .

We were in the vast minority, Boyd and I. Most people were basically the same, showing healthy ex­pressions of their individual differences. They mar­ried, had best friends, served on committees, and played bridge. All those activities seemed so foreign, their motivations so alien, to me.

My freedom fled. Frustration loomed before me, showing me an eternal search, a quest as hopeless as that for the Holy Grail. I would search for inner peace, for a common bond, normalcy, and never find any of it. It seemed my destiny was to be a futile search for answers to questions that were barely asked.

My frustration seemed as endless as the road that stretched before me, silvery and shining in the moonlight. As endless as the path of my life, as endless as the fence that stretched alongside the road, as endless as the herd of sheep that bedded on the other side of the fence.

As soon as I conceived the idea, blood raced to each capillary in my body. My whole being flushed. It had been weeks. Weeks. Suddenly, right here, was an antidote to my frustration. I could feel the relief already, creeping in around the edges. How could I have ever forgotten? The music was my companion­ship, my eternal friend. I needed only to evoke it.

I jumped the fence and caught up a lamb from next to its mother. I ripped at it furiously and drank, knowing at the time that it tasted wrong, it tasted . . . bad, but I was helpless to stop myself.