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Brendon dreams of walking on the side of the road, and walk, and walking, and walking. There are helicopters over head, and fires burning in the distance. Smoke rises up so thick it darkens the sky, tries to hide the sun that won't stop beating down. His stomach lurches, sharp, and he just keeps putting one foot in front of the other, humming Three Little Birds with his fist clenched inside the pocket of his jeans.
He doesn't know he's dreaming, but he knows he used to dream of different things.
He used to dream of words and melodies, the way the strings of his favorite guitar pressed into his tired fingertips with A minor, C major, G. He used to dream of a stage, of a microphone, of camera flashes and a folk song playing in the background.
Allow me to exaggerate, he thinks, and grins but doesn't mean it, humming something different than before. He wants a drink, and he's dragging a backpack across the asphalt, a steady shhhhushhhhh instead of a beat, it bumps in time with the groves on the shoulder to wake up tired drivers. His fingers hurt from clenching around the strap; his shoulder hurts from pulling it; his feet hurt from walking.
There are soldiers marching in the distance, heavy boots against the packed dirt of the ditches. Brendon doesn't know if they're coming or going. He walks down the empty highway, one foot in front of the other, heading west, praying to make it big in the Hope Rush.
"Hey," someone says, and Brendon wakes up with a start, stomach twisted into some kind of knot so complicated it's only used by sailors and girl scouts making bracelets. There's medicinal cherry still too heavy on his tongue, and too sharp in the back of his throat. "Come on down to Larry's Lube and Tune, where we'll have you in, out, and fixed up in a jiff," the blonde on the TV finishes with a wink.
"Christ," Brendon says. He glares at the TV like it's the commercial's fault that his immune system could get its ass kicked by one of those pretend dogs that Paris Hilton would carry around in her purse.
The sun is just starting to rise, sneaking in through the blinds. His shoulder hurts from falling asleep on the couch, and his fingers tingle from lying on his arm. He's got some sort of flower potted in the windowsill, drooping, refusing to turn toward the sun. He understands completely.
By the time he dozes off again the pre-morning news is on, and people can't agree on whether or not America needs a health care plan.