Leena felt the weight of the air around her pressing in, almost suffocating her as she stood on the edge of the bridge, looking down. The waves crashed against the rocky shore to her left and right. Straight ahead was an endless sea, opening up into eternity, calling her to chase her perpetual dreams towards the horizon.

          No cars rushed past, carrying riders to mundane destinations. No voices drifted past on the soft breeze that revived itself now and again. She could hear nothing except the whisper of the air around her long, dark hair, the sound of the waves below her, and the hum of her own voice. She sang not a song, but just the notes that her soul put forth, trying to empty all her sad memories and moments into each note.

          Clouds began to roll in and provide a shroud around her flawless view of the sea, bringing her mind back into the present. As she looked down toward the waves crashing on the bridge supports she stepped back an inch, realizing her toes had somehow made their way just past the edge of the cold cement bridge. Mentally collecting herself, Leena crouched down and carefully climbed back onto the walkway of the bridge. Not a single car had passed her in however long she had stood on the edge singing.

          The face of her silver watch glowed neon blue up at her, proclaiming it to be 3:13 a.m. Two and a half hours she had poured her soul into an already forgotten song, without noticing even a single soul passing within miles of her. Sighing, Leena’s shoulders sagged as the energy her music had instilled in her quickly faded. She picked up her well-weathered backpack and threw it over her shoulder, turning to face the setting moon. Taking in a deep, steadying breath she began walking. Her feet shuffled in protest.

          Thoughts drifted through her mind as she walked, half asleep, down a deserted road. Images of the faces of people she had known, friends that just didn’t seem to exist anymore, slowly paraded past her mind's eye. Curiosity of what could have been and what had become of these people had long ago died. So, instead, she contented her tired mind with blurred memories.

          Hours came and went, without headlights and without any sound, save the wind. Finally, her legs refused to go any further, and she stumbled a few feet away from the road to the only tree she'd seen for miles. She gratefully collapsed under it, sitting between two protruding roots. Sleep closed over her slowly as the sun crept over the horizon behind her.

          Morning passed and the heat rose to a blistering degree as the sun made its way towards its pinnacle in the sky. Leena came to, drenched in sweat. Thankfully the tree had prevented sunburn but the stagnant air made the shade almost useless against the heat. She dug through her backpack, found what was left of a bag of beef jerky and ate a few pieces. The rest of the bag was shoved back into its pocket and Leena swung her backpack into place and looked around. Some ways back, unnoticed by the wanderer, the paved road had given way to a dirt one. Green grass was choked off with weeds and sand. She continued to travel west.

          After another hour of walking she came upon a small town. To call this a town was even a bit of an overstatement for the small group of houses in front of her. Most of the shacks looked overgrown with vines and weeds, shingles were rotting and falling off of the roofs, and boards had fallen from their respective walls. Drawing closer, Leena saw apprehensive faces watching her from windows smeared with dirt. She stepped past the first few houses without seeing anyone outside. When she made it to the middle of the “town” a man stepped out of the least decrepit house and stared at her.

          "What do ye want here? State your business." He fidgeted with a cross that hung from a leather string around his neck. Leena tensed her shoulders, prepared to face another rejection.

          "Some place to belong is all I would want anywhere." She braced her own eyes from the tears that would inevitably fall when he turned her away, just like every other little town she had been through in her years of roaming the countryside. After a quiet moment, the man shrugged his shoulders, and tipped his head to the left, indicating one of the smaller ramshackle houses.

          "That ones empty, still standin‘. You can have it." He walked back inside without another word, leaving the young vagabond standing confused in the middle of what she thought to be a very strange town. She walked cautiously toward the little house and pushed the door. It swung open on creaky hinges. A faint smell permeated the whole place; a strange scent that could only be described as old. It was what one could imagine emanating from some ancient Egyptian tomb the first time it was reopened. The shack had a table, a single chair, and one cupboard in the first room. The odor seemed stronger in the second room, which Leena passively called a bedroom despite its lack of a bed. There was nothing more than a small, worn-looking hammock hanging in the corner. She tried to ignore the lingering smell, which was not the stench of death or more unpleasant things, but perhaps the strange whiff of space unwanted. The whole town, in fact, seemed to have this distinct but almost imperceptible aura about it.

          Leena set her backpack on the table and looked out the window. No one walked about or even peeked out their windows now. She shrugged, putting it up to the heat and sat down in the chair. She unzipped her bag and dumped out what little she owned onto the table and sorted through her things: an old, well loved copy of her favorite novel, Down the Long Hills by Louis L'Amour, a tattered, faded bandana, and a small leather-bound book with no visible writing on the spine or covers. She opened this and flipped through yellowed, handwritten pages and sketches. She set the book aside and continued digging. There was a plastic cosmetics bag with various curious objects she had found disregarded. Leena shook her head, wondering how she had forgotten most of what was in her own backpack.  She held a small tin jewelry box that was so dented it no longer opened, but she knew the tiny friendship necklace was still inside it, safe.

          She remembered despondently the girl she had given the other half of the necklace to all those years ago. Long, brown curls bounced in front of her mind’s eye and laughter drifted past her memory’s ears. Leena remembered when she was nineteen, when her whole world had been built around her dearest friend and their fantasies of the “real world.” In Leena's opinion, Bethany had been the most beautiful girl she'd ever seen. Tears welled up in here eyes as she remembered other events that had come to pass. In her blurred vision of the past, she saw the flashes of blood, the knife in Beth’s hand, the rush of people around her trying to help, the morgue, and the hearse. Finally, she recalled the sparse gathering around a simple headstone that bared the name of her sweetest friend. No kind words were spoken by the gatherers and no tears, save Leena’s, fell upon the freshly turned soil.

Leena shook her head fiercely, sending away the images of that horrible day. She forced her thoughts toward the inane: the way the yellow stripes down the middle of a road seem to run together after staring at them long enough, or the way the moon seems to rise and set whenever it feels content to do so, refusing to submit to a boring, predictable schedule like the sun has long abided by.

Days passed, every day exactly as the one before. Leena had seen no one since she had arrived. There had been dried provisions in the cupboard, and a working faucet in the corner, so even she had not felt a need to leave her little shack. She just sat looking at her few belongings and told herself that everything was okay, because now she belonged somewhere.

          By her fourth day in the small village, the food that had been there when she arrived was either eaten or had gone bad. She walked to the door and hesitated without really understanding why. The door's hinges creaked in protest and she forced them to work. Outside the air was still hot, but a gentle, constant breeze had begun to offer some relief from the sun's oppression. Leena walked past half a dozen of the run down cabins; nothing particular distinguished one from any of the others. Finally, after crossing the entire village twice, she picked one of the homes and knocked on the door. After several long minutes, the door cracked open and a young but stress-worn face peered out. The young man started to shut the door in Leena’s face but she held it open.

          "I just want to know where the store is. Why doesn’t any one ever come outside?" She felt her eyebrows knitting together in frustration and confusion.

          “Why can’t you just leave people alone?” he mumbled, “go that way.” He gestured to the north and pushed the door shut while Leena was looking away in the direction he had pointed.

          Aggravated now, she stalked off toward the north. Just past the last two houses she saw a small lean-to that had one large opening with a shelf full of dried goods in jars. She dug into her pocket to retrieve her last two dollars. As she got closer she noticed an old, simple-minded looking man sitting on the ground in the corner of the booth. He stood up slowly and looked at his customer through half closed eyes.

          "I needed to get s…" The old man abruptly cut her off by grabbing three different jars and practically dropping them on the counter in front of her. He snatched the two dollars out of her hand and mumbled something rude about her not returning her empty jars like she’s supposed to. After this brief interruption he returned to his corner of the floor and sat back down as if he had never moved in the first place. Leena took the three jars and slowly made her way back to her little home, dejected.

After a week of utter silence, Leena began to desperately miss using her voice to sing out her pain. She stood up and looked out the window, towards the twilight that was creeping into the sky. The dingy, imperfect windows made it difficult to see the beauty in the sky's transitions from day to night and back again, but she remembered it well enough. Breathing deep and slow, she wanted to let her voice escape, to comfort her. When she opened her mouth, though, her song died before even one note had passed her lips. The quiet air here was oppressing, or even so much as smothering. This silence only propagated a deeper silence. She walked back to the chair and sat down, heavy-hearted, and stared at the grain of the wood that made up the table. The soundless space around her seemed to permit only the dullest activities.

          Two weeks soon passed with each day bleeding slowly into the next. The dullness caused deep thoughts to become like burdens. The now ex-drifter looked up from her sluggish thoughts and blinked away the blur that had worked its way into her vision over the hours she had sat through almost mindlessly.

          Nothing had changed around her, but inside something moved. She could feel a thought tugging at the very edges of her consciousness, unable to hold on since the hours of futile thought had made her mind feel languid. Again, she began to drift into a blank stare, unable to grasp the thought tugging at the corners of her intellect.

          The silence became almost deafening. She sat straight up, suddenly becoming aware of her surroundings once again. It was only then that she noticed what truly seemed wrong here. It was not the dilapidated houses, or the rag-draped inhabitants, but the fact that there was nothing but the houses and their owners. There were no stores, no plants, apart from the weeds choking off some houses' front steps. No voices ever found their way to her ears. Everyone just sat in their little houses and did nothing. This was not life, this place was full of people hiding from it. She threw her things back into her bag, took some of the dried provisions and ran out the door. She ran back in the direction from which she had come until her legs burned and her lungs clenched painfully in her chest.

She found the lone tree she had slept at before arriving in the lifeless little village and collapsed under it. After her breathing returned to normal, she sighed loudly and massaged her temples. Her voice ached now, as it was not accustomed to being unused for so long. She began to sing, her voice faltering through the first few notes, then growing stronger as her subconscious took over. Once again she poured her eternally broken heart into her song. The pain in her chest dulled and lifted as the hours passed and her voice rang out through the empty fields.

Finally the energy that Leena had poured into the song was expended and her voice was rasping. Staring out into the cloudless sky, she wondered how she had ended up back in the exact place she had been nearly a month earlier. Then she realized how far she now really was from where she had been before. She was content in her own thoughts, no longer desiring the acceptance of some kind of society. Her thoughts trailed off with the last light of the day, and she slept.