Outside the dorm window one night, owl's eerie hoot woke him again. He shot up from a dream, heart racing, haste pulling him to the window. The moon was full behind branches, turning the meadow silver, spreading it seemed forever toward the west. I will live a long time, he thought, remembering the dream -- of turquoise waves from Hawaii and China lapping on California beaches. He had never seen California, and knew no one there. He pulled a scrap of paper from his wallet: names and phone numbers friends had given him -- of three strangers. Again the owl called.
Without turning on a light, he walked to the closet, pulled out clothes, and started throwing them in his backpack. He worked quickly by moonlight, assembling what he thought he might need, then grabbed a few snacks, and last, but most important -- his music notebook. A singing started inside him, strange and exciting. Without looking back, he slid one palm along the banister and crept down the red-carpeted stairs, crossed the carpeted hall, opened the heavy door, and strode into the night.
He was raised to believe people were good and the world safe. Ahead Bob Dylan was singing "Like A Rolling Stone," but raised on classical music, he hadn't even heard Dylan yet.
He walked and walked through groves of trees, past pastureland until finally he reached the road. The moon, the night seemed to shine on him as if something extraordinary was about to happen. He kept walking through fields along the roadside, waiting to stick out his thumb and hitchhike for the first time. But nothing: no car or truck appeared. Walking alone that night, he began to become the person he would be.
"Inglop"
