Innocents on the Lamb

  I stared out the window of the bus and watched the farm pass, across a landscape someone once called “The Great Bread Basket,” though for me, the monotony of sameness I could not relieve with the book I had purchased in Philadelphia but had neglected. The bus plunged on into the afternoon of my second day out from the city of Brotherly love, and the red glow of the slanted sunlight illuminated everything as if we moved in a dream, or a reminder of those better days at home when I wandered Garret Mountain in late autumn, a similar sun setting through the changing leaves. The miles wore on. Fence post after fence post connected by strands of wire, behind which late season corn grew, swaying in anticipation of a final harvest. While speculation over the cause of the dead man's demise lasted many people a long time, even that ran out after a while, with most of us clinging to our windows for some relief, signs that we could read that would even momentarily break up the monotony of t