Caleb never followed the antics of his Midwestern brethren, walking the fields and dry city streets, staring up at their naked blue skies with their naked blue eyes. He rarely looked behind himself either, those places had already been discovered.

He cared about what was in front of him, where he was going, maybe she was up there, carried forward by those red lights. He needed to discover her again. He started to twist his wrist, to wind his watch. He felt foolish, remembering only a strip of pale skin wound around his wrist now.

Caleb still tasted blood. He never considered it was his, it sloshed within his stomach and leaked from his lacerated spleen. But his body knew whose it was, and gave out, sending Caleb into convulsive clouds of dirt.

When he came too, that pale strip on his arm burned red under the blazing sun. Weak beyond death, he stared up. A massive highway interchange, like a thousand D.N.A strands, floated a few miles above, red lights pulsing along it’s lanes. And so much blue.