I parked in the huge, almost empty parking lot skirting Rainbow Foods, a parking lot that at one time must have held high hopes. Now there were only three pathetic beater cars bunched together, probably employee-owned, real rattletrap Minnesota cars with the rusted-out scars of bitter blizzards and salted roads. A kid with a long green apron and a backward baseball cap was pushing a line of shopping carts, snaking them back toward the electric doors of Rainbow Foods. I turned the ignition off and watched him heave his wafer-thin body against the weight of the carts, inching them past all the abandoned, out-of-business storefronts: The Pet Palace, Nora’s Nails, 24 Hour Developing. The plate-glass windows of each store were blocked out halfway up with brown butcher paper, I guess to keep people from looking in at all the emptiness. I got out and squeezed the button on my remote-control door lock. This is an affectation I’d long despised in other drivers, but now I find myself not only doing it but enjoying the sensation of detached authority it gives me. I especially enjoy it when the car beeps and blinks back at you, confirming that everything is locked and secure. I stood there for a long while in that almost empty parking lot, just facing the car door and pushing the button over and over, watching the lights blink and listening to the horn honk, until I noticed that the kid pushing the carts had stopped and was staring at me as though I might be dangerous. I smiled and pointed my remote-control button in his direction. He immediately fled with his train of carts, toward the doors of Rainbow Foods. A sudden great feeling of freedom and aloneness swept over me. I stared out at the deep-gray swirls of clouds against the setting sun. The prairie wind was whipping a rope on the tall aluminum flagpole, making a rhythmic clanking while, at the top, a gigantic American flag popped and snarled like it was trying to bite itself in the ass. A V of geese slid silently across the long silver shelf of clouds, silhouetted against the sunset. Usually, they make that frantic honking, as though pleading with some unseen force to get them safely back down to earth, but these were completely silent. I couldn’t even hear the snap of their wings as they passed over.