• It was on that frigid September afternoon that I found myself watching as the Montana countryside passed by so rapidly through the train's observation car windows. For two days I'd ridden in that passenger compartment, crammed into a single economy-class seat for forty-eight hours. The glamor of train travel is highly overrated.
    Pushing my glasses back up the bridge of my nose, I glanced down at the object that rested on my lap, the object that had driven me to take this journey across the country in the first place. Its leather cover was bound shut by a thin strip of the same, and its yellowing pages were still blank. Perhaps in the mountains lay the answers I sought. Perhaps in the mountains lay truth.
    From a slight reflection in the large window, I could see a young girl watching me from a table across the aisle. She couldn't have been older than five or six years of age, nor could she have been any less fascinated by my stillness, apparently. I stared back at her reflection, making my best “stop staring at me” face. It worked after a few drawn-out moments, and I smiled to myself. Ah, to be innocent once more.
    On a mountainside in the distance I could just make out a herd of buffalo thundering across the plain, as though without a single care, as though without a destination in mind at all. They simply ran, this way and that, weaving around boulders and the sparse pines and cedars. I tried to find meaning in their movements, but eventually settled on the idea that the meaning was that the movement had no meaning. Were these buffalo mocking me?
    As my eyes refocused on the reflections in the window, that little girl's eyes once again met mine, her head tilted to the side with curiosity. I pushed my hat forward to hide my eyes and leaned back in my seat, crossing my arms to shut out the world. A tug on my rolled up sleeve preceded a tiny voice.
    “Mister? Why are you alone?”
    I looked at her without turning my head, from the corner of my eye, giving her a small grin. Her mother quickly rushed over, taking her by the hand and apologizing for the intrusion of her young ward. We're all alone, kid. We all are.
    It's amazing how observant children can often be. It's like they exist on a different plane than the rest of us. Sometimes I long to return to that plane and forget about this one. If I did that, though, I'd never find what I sought. The pages would remain blank.
    A sudden jolt alerted me to the fact that the train was decelerating. This would be my stop. I made my way back to my seat and gathered my single bag, slinging it over my shoulder and waiting for the complete stop as directed by the conductor over the speakers, who sounded like he'd rather be bathing in boiling oil than speaking to us.
    I stood on the platform along with the two dozen or so others arriving that day in East Glacier, Montana, pulling a jacket around myself as a freezing wind cut through the little town in the foothills of the Rockies. The crowd began to disperse, most of them toting large internal frame backpacks and aluminum hiking sticks. I, however, went straight across the road to a little diner squished between a steak house and a grocery store, only large enough to accommodate three tables with four chairs each.
    “What'll it be?” an aging waitress queried.
    “Buffalo burger and fries,” was my reply.
    Just across the way was a field of buffalo, and at this very diner could be found the freshest, juiciest buffalo burger in the entirety of the world, I was sure. When the whopping meal arrived, I devoured it as usual and paid my bill, exiting once again into the cold September air. That'll show those mocking bastards. As the entire city could be crossed on foot in a matter of minutes, I made my way to the car rental center. I picked up an old SUV, pumped the gas to get the thing started, and made my way a few miles down the road.
    There it was, nestled in the trees by a small lake. That was where I would mount my search for the words to fill the pages. I walked up to the front door of the cabin, inserted the key into the lock just so, as to not break the old thing, and opened the creaking door to the place I'd depended on in the past for answers when I needed them, so far from home.
    It was just as I'd left it. The lumpy couch with dilapidated pillows, lamp with the torn shade, window with the broken blinds overlooking the lake, and the little kitchen with the '70s fridge and small microwave. They were all there.
    And there was the book. There were the blank pages.
    Down on the couch I sat, arranging the pillows the way I liked them after tossing my jacket across the room haphazardly. I unwound the leather strap from the book, opened the cover to stare at that first empty page. The lack of words was startling. There were infinitely few letters on that page, like an inverted universe filled with every thought ever devised. I felt vertigo, looking down into that abyss that stared right back at me.
    I saw buffalo running across the page, this way and that. Were they mocking me? They devolved into swirling lines which developed into what looked almost like letters, but when I attempted to read them they just vanished again. Maybe it was the air, so much less humid than I was accustomed to, playing with my senses.
    I drew my favorite sword, clicking the end to extend the lead, and chased the symbols around the page. After what seemed hours, I slammed the cover shut again and stepped outside through the back door, walking down to the water's edge. Sunset came early in the mountains, the natural monoliths hid Sol from the world, and the lake sparkled with the light from the stars. This far north, you could even see the band of the Milky Way. The moon was in its last quarter, providing just enough light to see the empty pages with. Would Luna give me the answers?
    I sat down against a large rock by the shore, opening the book a few pages in. Once again the vertigo gripped me, and it seemed that all the knowledge in the would could never fill that void. Maybe writing about this vertigo would somehow counter the feeling that it imposed upon me. For over an hour I scribed the most beautiful verse I'd ever dreamed up. Would the answers finally reveal themselves?
    Here on this lakeshore does the sky lift up, giving birth to the mountains. Here on this lakeshore do the stars hesitate, not wanting to disturb the perfect balance of nature, not wanting to pierce the veil of darkness that blankets the land. Everything sleeps, searching for the truth in dreams. What truth is that, though? If truth cannot be found in the waking world, then the so-called truth in our dreams is surely just a shadow of a shadow – just a ripple cast by a phantom through the ocean of consciousness.
    I closed the cover and sighed. If there is no truth to be found, then why was I driven to such lengths to find it? The book was almost filled now – three hundred pages of emptiness filled with the drivelings of a loner. How long had I been out here? Time seemed not to move in natural ways in my inverted universe filled with all the thoughts ever devised. Could the abyss really have been filled?
    “Mister? Why are you alone?”
    I stood and spun around swiftly. I don't know why, but I handed the little girl my book. Something told me that she held the truth that I sought. Did she have the answers I needed so badly?
    “Why are you alone?” she repeated.
    “We're all alone, kid,” I said as if part of a ritual.
    “The pages are empty. There's nothing here.”
    The book fell from her hands, and the pages fell from it as it hit the ground, scattering all around her. Surely they were mocking me.
    “They've always been empty,” I replied.
    She cocked her head to the side. “What will you do now, mister?”
    I smiled, snorting a laugh quietly to myself. Looking up to the sky, with that little girl watching on in curiosity, I readied my answer, the only answer that I could ever know for sure. I looked her in the eyes for a long moment and said, “I'll fill them again.”