He walked home the same way he’d walked to work this morning, through the field and over to Fifth Street, but there seemed something different this afternoon and he could not quite put his finger on what it was.

It was chilly once again, and there were red and yellow leaves on the sidewalks and the streets. The sun was not down, but it was low, and the neighborhoods through which he passed were shrouded in shadow. He put down his briefcase, buttoned up his coat against the cold. Fall was here, not officially but in spirit, and that cheered him up. No matter what else was going on, no matter how horrible his life became, there were still things to look forward to, still things to enjoy.

There was a lot to be said for simple pleasures.

At the next intersection, he turned right, onto Clover. Before him, there was a trail of burnt toast on the sidewalk, and he stopped in his tracks, staring at the line of blackened squares stretching out before him.

It came back to him. Not thoughts but feelings. Not images but ambiance.

A cool breeze brushed his cheek.

The burnt toast trail led down the block for as far as he could see, and though he was aware that it could have been placed there by some child as part of a game, he knew that was not the case. It would have taken hours to burn so many pieces of toast, even in the largest toaster, and there was no real point to it. That was too much effort, too much thought, too much work for such a bizarre and meaningless effect.

This was what it had been like in Oakdale, he realized. These were the sorts of things that had happened at home. It had been a world of sudden strangeness, of incongruous juxtapositions, a world in which the irrational was an everyday occurrence.

He stared at the sidewalk in front of him.

No child had done this.

The trail had been meant for him.

It was a sign.

Return.

The breeze was still blowing, but the coldness he felt had nothing to do with the weather. It came from within, and while he could not remember specifics of his life in Oakdale, he had a clearer sense of the overall picture, and he was even more frightened of it than he had been before.

Something was trying to communicate with him, and despite the trepidation he felt, he walked forward, down the sidewalk, following the toast.

The trail led to an empty house in the center of Sterling Avenue, two blocks away. Across the street, a mother standing on her front porch called her bundled daughters in for dinner while their friends continued to play hopscotch on the sidewalk. Several neighbors on both sides of the tree-lined drive waved and called out to each other as they walked their dogs.