I thought maybe he would help me find my way around this desolate part of Nebraska. Or wherever it was. His hair was wispy and blond and maybe thinning, although he wasn’t old. He wrote “Andrew Closer” but the last name kept disappearing as he wrote it, or rather, transforming. It transformed into icons and I was afraid I would not be able to remember if the letters did not stay intact, but also found it remarkable that his name was Andrew, the same name as a friend of mine, and also was his last name “closer” as in, someone who ends something or was it instead a spatial relationship, was is someone near, or more near. I knew that I probably wouldn’t see him again despite the fact that he’d helped us get away even at his own risk. I think he boss owned an autobody shop of some sort, something seedy with dusty venetian blinds and flat carpeting. We were in the offices at night and gathering ourselves for the next part, although I don’t know what was next but this seemed to help us prepare none-the-less. It was done at night and in the dark and quietly to evade notice and Nebraska seemed flat and white and dusty and plantless.
It was some relief to end up in the other house in Washington state because of the foliage, even though the house itself was most likely rotting from moisture and the family had five children all traversing the flights of stairs to the small rooms on the different levels all nestled in the trees like a haunted story book and I was uneasy, but the trees were better than flat white space and at least gave the impression that there was more to it all perhaps because you couldn’t just see it all laid bare in front of you and there were corners around which you might at least hold out hope for something else and mystery is important even if it is horrible. Maybe this family lived in a tree house, but I suspect the house was older than they even suspected and also that they’d not been in all the rooms. I tried to follow all of the staircases and look at the different wallpapers.