On the Way to Route 11

Two score years of living in Fox Run Estates where she saw neither a fox run nor a living fox. Two score years that flashed like the street light above her. Two score years of watching a newly-invented neighborhood ripen with her, an old friend, a companion--they're the same age, the greater town and the woman. Two score years watching her housing development develop, which has meant watching it be no longer new and no longer vibrant and no longer young. Watching people leave. Watching people move south where it's warmer and cheaper. Watching her kids grow up and move away. Watching her kids' friends grow up and stay or move away. Seeing everyone at holidays. Special holy days that have become sad reminders of what is done. Months--perhaps years, decades?--of looking for a sign, looking for a Symbol, looking for Hope. Looking for something today that might help her to continue down this road toward Route 11. This search can be summed up this way, she's just thought, using something she's just now seen in her rearview mirror, out the back of her Subaru Tribeca: Canada geese on an empty football field.

About the author:

Kevin Nolan is a former trade journalist and web editor. These days he's writing mostly short fiction and finishing a novel.