Daisy looks around the bus terminal.

She looks very much like a Daisy.

Tall, blue-eyed, with short, blonde hair that is neither straight nor curly, floral blouse tucked into bluejeans whose soft, faded blue denim accentuate. her broad, flaring hips, the twin roundnesses of her buttocks.

A big farm girl, Daisy.

And she has left home.

Not run away, but simply left, her high school education completed, the farm a dusty expanse of whithered crops capped, near the highway, by a dilapidated cluster of barn, silo and house.

There was no argument, was in fact no discussion. Except for a sighing, grudging, "Well, maybe it'd be fer the best aft'all," from her father.

Who had no time or interest in her future, it being, by definition, than any version of his, of the farm's.

He had nothing for her.

There was nothing for her, back there. Talk of subsidies, talk of loans, slim possibilities, the suggestion, the shadow of hope, rather than hope itself.

Try it.

Come east.

Come to the city of possibilities, however nebulous, of hope, however slim and without foundation.

And now, looking around, she sees that the city has drawn her to it like a vacuum.

She has been attracted, moved by a nothingness, an emptiness even greater than that she left behind, she sees.

Because there is no clue here, no indicator.

There is no sign from heaven.

And to seek within her heart is to know only more emptiness.

Inspiration does not strike.

She has gone from hopelessness to hopelessness. Those with hopes and dreams, valid ones, do not take the bus.

They fly.

And she too could have flown.

She had enough money for that, at least.

But she didn't.

Why?

Because to fly is to collapse time, to shorten distance.

And, if all one has is a nebulous, shaky illusion, then flying is also to kill that, to nip it in the bud.