Chapter Two
Sarah awakened in a bed, in a room she didn't recognize, and for a moment
couldn't breath. She saw Brian in her mind, slipping under the sheets of her bed and
touching her leg with cold hands, wet with blood. Sarah leapt out of the starched sheets
and frantically ran to the window.
She threw it open, gasping in the cool morning air and looked out. Below her,
two or three floors, was a pool with little children running around it. They had bright
orange inflatable arm cuffs around their forearm, making them seem unnaturally slender.
Sarah watched, with a smile, and then let the silky drapes sweep back over the window, as
they were sucked into the breeze.
Her keys and purse were laying on the table, with the "room service" menu that
proudly boasted "Denny's" on the cover. Sarah ran her fingertips over the sticky surface,
smelling syrup in her mind without having to bring her fingers to her nose. Then, pausing
in front of the mirror to look at herself with nothing but her bra and underwear, she felt
the hair on the back of her neck stand on end.
It was a strangely sensational feeling that ducked into the very center of her gut.
Sarah smiled, but shivered as she remained poised before the image of herself. As if she
had been punched, the elation faded, and she reached up to touch her cheek where a
brown and painfully blue bruise had spread beneath her eye.
"Where am I going?" Sarah asked herself, as she rubbed her hands across her
sweaty face.
With a sigh and a stretch she looked at the mirror again and felt herself go cold.
He was lingering by the window, his pale blonde hair cast in ribbons around his feral
features. The King lifted his eyes, acknowledged her shock, and then smiled. His
passiveness faded, and his eyes darkened almost making the entire hotel room grow black.
"Jareth!" Sarah rushed out breathlessly as she turned around.
But He wasn't there. He had never been there. She had taken intense
psychological therapies in order to convince herself of the fact that He was nothing more
than a figment of her imagination. She had created him and so... had also uncreated him.
But why did it seem that she could almost taste his magic in the air lately?
She suddenly felt very exposed in her underclothes and ducked quickly into the
bathroom, passing by the snowy white owl feather lilting from the stagnant air onto the
dull tan carpeting.
~*~
"Listen, Jenene, I just need a place to stay for a little while," Sarah explained,
switching her cell phone from one ear to the other as she made a turn onto another street
that she didn't recognize.
Jenene was quiet for some time, tripping over her words before they even came
out of her mouth. "It's not that Ryan and I wouldn't be overjoyed to have you here,
Sarah, but the inlaws are visiting... God, this is awful." Jenene sounded only partly
sincere, but that part was convincing. Sarah almost felt as if she should have been the one
to apologize.
"I feel like I need to be pretty far, ya know. Oh, Jenene, listen. It's no biggie. I'll
call Carla, I think I'm getting nearer to Wilamette anyway," Sarah explained, looking
longly at the green sign post that was anything but the quiet suburb, Wilamette, where her
and Brian's mutual friend lived.
"Hey, if you need anything..."
"Yeah, a new life. Thanks, Jenene."
Sarah hung up the phone, tossing it carelessly over to the passenger seat. Her
friends were mostly all at their jobs, behind desks, in offices, or taking screaming kids to
school in massive carpools. Nothing like Sarah, nothing at all. And they wanted to keep
their lives safe and secure in their two-story-white-picket-fenced houses with garden
gnomes and pink flamingos. What they all wanted least of all was a threat.... and one that
could bring trouble with her.
"Don't blame them much," Sarah remarked.
The scenery was anything but interesting as she exited the city limits, and passed
by countless numbers of dry crops. It was strangely dry for such a cold day, and clear.
The clouds skirted over the mountain range behind her, and the sun was lazy in the
sapphire sky.
A horn blared and Sarah blinked as she returned her full attention to the road. In a
desperate reaction she swerved back to her lane, barely missing a speeding semi billowing
dust from its large canvas, securing its cargo. Sarah overcorrected, hit the ditch on the
side with her front right wheel, and just barely yanked herself back on to the poorly paved
road.
"Shit!" she screamed, her tire suddenly nonexistent as it bounced completely out of
the ditch and into the field she had been observing earlier.
Once again she swerved to avoid hitting on-coming traffic, another semi, and then
slammed on the brakes. Her car turned half-way around, then came to a screeching halt,
making the world stop spinning before her eyes. Sarah gripped the steering wheel, and,
jerkingly, glanced in her rear-view mirror. The tire was still rolling through the dried
crops.
She breathed, and breathed, and then finally realizing what had happened, opened
the car door. Outside it had begun to feel warmer, as the sun moved to its zenith. Sarah
didn't bother to take the keys out, just put her car into park and walked out on to the
barren stretch of highway. For some ungodly reason the only traffic had been those two
trucks, and they had caused all her problems.
"Now what?" she asked herself and then, kicking one of the good wheels directed
her voice skywards, "NOW WHAT?!"
Sarah leaned her back against the side of the car and thought over her options.
But, as she thought, she realized there was only one remaining... walk. She reached in and
grabbed her purse and, considering the necessity for a moment, finally took the keys out of
the ignition, if only to stop the car from beeping at her.
She looked back the way she had come and estimated the town to be at least five
miles away through all the damn crops. Then, glancing over her shoulder, she paused. A
great looming red sign that said but one word: GAS, was only a few hundred yards in the
distance. And while she hadn't remembered seeing it while driving, Sarah ignored any
nervous feelings.
Where there was a gas station, there would be mechanics... at least she hoped for
as much. With as much that had already gone wrong during the day, Sarah decided that
she was overdue for some good luck.
She walked briskly in the cool weather, her eyes fixed on the empty gas station, all
save one red pick-up truck and a blue Chevy that was up on a lift in a lean-to shed that
served as their repairs station... and as she neared she saw a whole tower of tires against
one edge of the shed.
"Thank god!" she muttered and sprinted the rest of the way.
She came upon the one-pump station, a bit winded but also exhilarated after the
wind. After jogging daily for the last three months, she assumed she could take a little run
now and then. "Hello?" Sarah called, as she avoided one empty gas container, with a
broken spout.
There wasn't an answer, persay, but she could hear a drill start up and male voices
from inside the shed. Sarah jogged over and, pushing the sliding door open a little more,
peered inside. "Hello?" she asked again, and one man in greasy and oil-stained blue
overalls tipped his sweaty hat towards her.
"What can we do for you?" he asked, and she tried to ignore the way his eyes
wandered away from her face.
Another man rolled out from under the car, and nodded towards her before
slipping back under. "My car... its down the street a little bit but, it lost a tire out in one
of those fields."
The overall man nodded and then chewed on something in his mouth. Sarah just
assumed that it was chewing tobacco. Then, sighing, he reached into one of his many
pockets and fished out some keys on a piece of worn rawhide. He was, obviously, the
truck's owner. "Be right back."
"Thank you," Sarah managed, before he ducked into the tow truck and cranked
the engine over, as if fighting with it to start. He won the battle, but Sarah had a sinking
feeling that, in the long run, he would lose the war with the truck.
"You wouldn't happen to have a phone, would you?" Sarah inquired, wondering
what had possessed her to leave her cell phone back at the car. Probably would become
Mr. Overall's property before the day was through. Somehow she didn't care very much.
"In the office." The man under the car started another contraption, that plunked
and clanked into something. As far as cars went, Sarah knew how to drive, and was
satisfied with her limited knowledge in any other aspect.
"Thanks."
Sarah hindered herself a brief moment and then, avoiding oily rags and empty cans
of beer, found her own way to the "office." It was nothing more than an aluminum sided
portable, not much bigger than the fanciest porta-potty, and Sarah doubted it'd smell
much better. But, she had to find some place to stay and stop the pointless wandering to
anywhere but home.
She pushed open the door, and it creaked and squealed along its hinges. And, just
as she walked inside, the phone rang. Sarah paused, holding the door open still... just
enough to let a fat horsefly lazily navigate its way inside. "Phone!" she called, and waited
again, as it continued to ring.
"Fine, fine!" she muttered and let the screen door slam shut. Sarah paused a
moment, stuck with a questionable decision and weighed her options. On, perhaps, the
tenth ring, deciding that the other party was not about to give up, she lifted the receiver
and with a quirked smile tried her hardest not to let her voice waver in saying: "Hello?"
Silence. They didn't recognize her. This was the "good old boys" club (like
where her husband had always gone) and she was a women on their turf. But then, there
was something, some little voice. "H-Hello? I'm sorry, I think we have a bad
connection." Sarah plugged her other ear and walked around the desk upon which the
phone had previously sat. The cord winded around her midsection.
Then she heard laughter. And it was so familiar that gooseflesh worked its
crooked path all across her skin. Sarah slammed the phone back down and stepped back,
biting her thumb nail as she stared at the phone, daring it to ring again. It was silent,
slayed, a mechanic beast only as good as the act of communication.
"Don't be a baby," she scolded herself and then picked up the receiver. The dial
tone met her, and soothed her nerves. She had overreacted... nothing more.
Then she paused again, questioning her original intent. Had it really come down to
her last option? Sarah shook her head, swallowed her pride, and then quickly dialed the
number she had tried so hard to forget. The phone only rang once before it was picked up
and she was met with a hasty, but effected greeting.
"Hi Mom."
A pause. A long pause that would be anything but dramatic if it had been on
stage. Her mother was an actress both on and off, despite her age defying her and
diminishing her roles. With each wrinkle she acquired the opportunities decreased. Then
Linda Williams cleared her throat and continued to speak, her audience held in stunned
stupor.
"Sarah... I'd though you be in class, darling."
"I left him. I left him and my work and my home and now... Mom I don't have
anywhere to go." It really, really hurt to admit her weakness, to ask for the help of a
women who she hadn't really known since she'd been eleven... fifteen years ago. She got
letters and pictures and short weekend visits, while Linda was in a touring group. Not
many of her plays came to the Sacramento suburbs.
"Sarah of course you can stay with me...," Linda trailed off and Sarah waited for
the inevitable "but" of the conversation.
"I know its short notice, but I have enough money for air fare to New York and..."
Sarah waited, setting herself up for more heartbreak as she let her hopes lift. She always
did that, her mother had a enigmatic personality and sparkling charisma. Even as a child
when Linda canceled visits with short notice, Sarah would find it bittersweet... at least
Momma had been happy.
"Listen, sweetheart, its tough right now," Linda began, her voice dipping low,
unlike much she had done before. Somehow she wasn't the same actress with the same
bravado she had always displayed.
"Another play?" Sarah questioned.
"...and you can come over here in a few months... two, or... no three!" Linda
Williams continued on as if she hadn't even heard Sarah speak. Sarah just smiled and
looked out the single grimy window in the "office" as the man in the overalls pulled up
with her car.
"Yeah, I understand." But she didn't. She really didn't. Why was it that her
Mother couldn't have time for her? In the midst of New York, in the richest of
neighborhoods at a penthouse! and her Mom couldn't clear out her life just enough to fit
Sarah. She didn't say anything that she felt.
"I know its been hard since your Dad and Karen... well, and now this with Brian.
But, your Aunt Mimi has a big house with a lot of room, and a lot of space," Linda paused
and breathed deeply, "She's had Toby over there ever since the accident."
Sarah inhaled sharply. Was it her pride that had conveniently forgotten the
farmhouse in the middle of Oklahoma... the closest neighbor some four miles down a
loosely paved road? Or was it the fact that she didn't want to be remembering her
childhood and the family trips out to the farm before her Mom decided to move on to
bigger and better things? At that point, however, it was her only option. Maxed-out
credit cards could only pay for so many plane flights and Holiday Inn one-nighters.
"I'd forgotten."
"You take care of yourself, Sarah."
Sarah watched the man in the overalls moving around her car, and squat down in
front of the tireless hub. His pants were low... too low, and Sarah got more of a sight
than she ever needed to see. Somehow the comical Redneck made the situation a bit
lighter.
"I will... and thanks."
They said their good-byes in short, choppy sentences, and then Sarah let the phone
slide back into its cradle. Mr. Overalls was cranking her car down, and she was surprised
to see a brand new tire glistening where there hadn't been one just a few moments earlier.
She couldn't assume anything bad about their service.
The air was dusty and stale when she left the office, and as the screen door clapped
back into its aluminum frame she heard the phone ringing again. Sarah was glad that it
was no longer her choice to make about answering it or not. She merely shaded her eyes
and opened her purse, indicating to the man that she was ready to go.
"Fill 'er up?" the man asked, taking a red bandanna from his pocket to dab at his
sweaty forehead, creased with thick lines. He obviously didn't care about the phone
ringing, and so Sarah tried her best to put it out of her mind.
"Yeah," she decided, letting her purse fall back around her shoulder, "I have a long
way to go."
Sarah awakened in a bed, in a room she didn't recognize, and for a moment
couldn't breath. She saw Brian in her mind, slipping under the sheets of her bed and
touching her leg with cold hands, wet with blood. Sarah leapt out of the starched sheets
and frantically ran to the window.
She threw it open, gasping in the cool morning air and looked out. Below her,
two or three floors, was a pool with little children running around it. They had bright
orange inflatable arm cuffs around their forearm, making them seem unnaturally slender.
Sarah watched, with a smile, and then let the silky drapes sweep back over the window, as
they were sucked into the breeze.
Her keys and purse were laying on the table, with the "room service" menu that
proudly boasted "Denny's" on the cover. Sarah ran her fingertips over the sticky surface,
smelling syrup in her mind without having to bring her fingers to her nose. Then, pausing
in front of the mirror to look at herself with nothing but her bra and underwear, she felt
the hair on the back of her neck stand on end.
It was a strangely sensational feeling that ducked into the very center of her gut.
Sarah smiled, but shivered as she remained poised before the image of herself. As if she
had been punched, the elation faded, and she reached up to touch her cheek where a
brown and painfully blue bruise had spread beneath her eye.
"Where am I going?" Sarah asked herself, as she rubbed her hands across her
sweaty face.
With a sigh and a stretch she looked at the mirror again and felt herself go cold.
He was lingering by the window, his pale blonde hair cast in ribbons around his feral
features. The King lifted his eyes, acknowledged her shock, and then smiled. His
passiveness faded, and his eyes darkened almost making the entire hotel room grow black.
"Jareth!" Sarah rushed out breathlessly as she turned around.
But He wasn't there. He had never been there. She had taken intense
psychological therapies in order to convince herself of the fact that He was nothing more
than a figment of her imagination. She had created him and so... had also uncreated him.
But why did it seem that she could almost taste his magic in the air lately?
She suddenly felt very exposed in her underclothes and ducked quickly into the
bathroom, passing by the snowy white owl feather lilting from the stagnant air onto the
dull tan carpeting.
~*~
"Listen, Jenene, I just need a place to stay for a little while," Sarah explained,
switching her cell phone from one ear to the other as she made a turn onto another street
that she didn't recognize.
Jenene was quiet for some time, tripping over her words before they even came
out of her mouth. "It's not that Ryan and I wouldn't be overjoyed to have you here,
Sarah, but the inlaws are visiting... God, this is awful." Jenene sounded only partly
sincere, but that part was convincing. Sarah almost felt as if she should have been the one
to apologize.
"I feel like I need to be pretty far, ya know. Oh, Jenene, listen. It's no biggie. I'll
call Carla, I think I'm getting nearer to Wilamette anyway," Sarah explained, looking
longly at the green sign post that was anything but the quiet suburb, Wilamette, where her
and Brian's mutual friend lived.
"Hey, if you need anything..."
"Yeah, a new life. Thanks, Jenene."
Sarah hung up the phone, tossing it carelessly over to the passenger seat. Her
friends were mostly all at their jobs, behind desks, in offices, or taking screaming kids to
school in massive carpools. Nothing like Sarah, nothing at all. And they wanted to keep
their lives safe and secure in their two-story-white-picket-fenced houses with garden
gnomes and pink flamingos. What they all wanted least of all was a threat.... and one that
could bring trouble with her.
"Don't blame them much," Sarah remarked.
The scenery was anything but interesting as she exited the city limits, and passed
by countless numbers of dry crops. It was strangely dry for such a cold day, and clear.
The clouds skirted over the mountain range behind her, and the sun was lazy in the
sapphire sky.
A horn blared and Sarah blinked as she returned her full attention to the road. In a
desperate reaction she swerved back to her lane, barely missing a speeding semi billowing
dust from its large canvas, securing its cargo. Sarah overcorrected, hit the ditch on the
side with her front right wheel, and just barely yanked herself back on to the poorly paved
road.
"Shit!" she screamed, her tire suddenly nonexistent as it bounced completely out of
the ditch and into the field she had been observing earlier.
Once again she swerved to avoid hitting on-coming traffic, another semi, and then
slammed on the brakes. Her car turned half-way around, then came to a screeching halt,
making the world stop spinning before her eyes. Sarah gripped the steering wheel, and,
jerkingly, glanced in her rear-view mirror. The tire was still rolling through the dried
crops.
She breathed, and breathed, and then finally realizing what had happened, opened
the car door. Outside it had begun to feel warmer, as the sun moved to its zenith. Sarah
didn't bother to take the keys out, just put her car into park and walked out on to the
barren stretch of highway. For some ungodly reason the only traffic had been those two
trucks, and they had caused all her problems.
"Now what?" she asked herself and then, kicking one of the good wheels directed
her voice skywards, "NOW WHAT?!"
Sarah leaned her back against the side of the car and thought over her options.
But, as she thought, she realized there was only one remaining... walk. She reached in and
grabbed her purse and, considering the necessity for a moment, finally took the keys out of
the ignition, if only to stop the car from beeping at her.
She looked back the way she had come and estimated the town to be at least five
miles away through all the damn crops. Then, glancing over her shoulder, she paused. A
great looming red sign that said but one word: GAS, was only a few hundred yards in the
distance. And while she hadn't remembered seeing it while driving, Sarah ignored any
nervous feelings.
Where there was a gas station, there would be mechanics... at least she hoped for
as much. With as much that had already gone wrong during the day, Sarah decided that
she was overdue for some good luck.
She walked briskly in the cool weather, her eyes fixed on the empty gas station, all
save one red pick-up truck and a blue Chevy that was up on a lift in a lean-to shed that
served as their repairs station... and as she neared she saw a whole tower of tires against
one edge of the shed.
"Thank god!" she muttered and sprinted the rest of the way.
She came upon the one-pump station, a bit winded but also exhilarated after the
wind. After jogging daily for the last three months, she assumed she could take a little run
now and then. "Hello?" Sarah called, as she avoided one empty gas container, with a
broken spout.
There wasn't an answer, persay, but she could hear a drill start up and male voices
from inside the shed. Sarah jogged over and, pushing the sliding door open a little more,
peered inside. "Hello?" she asked again, and one man in greasy and oil-stained blue
overalls tipped his sweaty hat towards her.
"What can we do for you?" he asked, and she tried to ignore the way his eyes
wandered away from her face.
Another man rolled out from under the car, and nodded towards her before
slipping back under. "My car... its down the street a little bit but, it lost a tire out in one
of those fields."
The overall man nodded and then chewed on something in his mouth. Sarah just
assumed that it was chewing tobacco. Then, sighing, he reached into one of his many
pockets and fished out some keys on a piece of worn rawhide. He was, obviously, the
truck's owner. "Be right back."
"Thank you," Sarah managed, before he ducked into the tow truck and cranked
the engine over, as if fighting with it to start. He won the battle, but Sarah had a sinking
feeling that, in the long run, he would lose the war with the truck.
"You wouldn't happen to have a phone, would you?" Sarah inquired, wondering
what had possessed her to leave her cell phone back at the car. Probably would become
Mr. Overall's property before the day was through. Somehow she didn't care very much.
"In the office." The man under the car started another contraption, that plunked
and clanked into something. As far as cars went, Sarah knew how to drive, and was
satisfied with her limited knowledge in any other aspect.
"Thanks."
Sarah hindered herself a brief moment and then, avoiding oily rags and empty cans
of beer, found her own way to the "office." It was nothing more than an aluminum sided
portable, not much bigger than the fanciest porta-potty, and Sarah doubted it'd smell
much better. But, she had to find some place to stay and stop the pointless wandering to
anywhere but home.
She pushed open the door, and it creaked and squealed along its hinges. And, just
as she walked inside, the phone rang. Sarah paused, holding the door open still... just
enough to let a fat horsefly lazily navigate its way inside. "Phone!" she called, and waited
again, as it continued to ring.
"Fine, fine!" she muttered and let the screen door slam shut. Sarah paused a
moment, stuck with a questionable decision and weighed her options. On, perhaps, the
tenth ring, deciding that the other party was not about to give up, she lifted the receiver
and with a quirked smile tried her hardest not to let her voice waver in saying: "Hello?"
Silence. They didn't recognize her. This was the "good old boys" club (like
where her husband had always gone) and she was a women on their turf. But then, there
was something, some little voice. "H-Hello? I'm sorry, I think we have a bad
connection." Sarah plugged her other ear and walked around the desk upon which the
phone had previously sat. The cord winded around her midsection.
Then she heard laughter. And it was so familiar that gooseflesh worked its
crooked path all across her skin. Sarah slammed the phone back down and stepped back,
biting her thumb nail as she stared at the phone, daring it to ring again. It was silent,
slayed, a mechanic beast only as good as the act of communication.
"Don't be a baby," she scolded herself and then picked up the receiver. The dial
tone met her, and soothed her nerves. She had overreacted... nothing more.
Then she paused again, questioning her original intent. Had it really come down to
her last option? Sarah shook her head, swallowed her pride, and then quickly dialed the
number she had tried so hard to forget. The phone only rang once before it was picked up
and she was met with a hasty, but effected greeting.
"Hi Mom."
A pause. A long pause that would be anything but dramatic if it had been on
stage. Her mother was an actress both on and off, despite her age defying her and
diminishing her roles. With each wrinkle she acquired the opportunities decreased. Then
Linda Williams cleared her throat and continued to speak, her audience held in stunned
stupor.
"Sarah... I'd though you be in class, darling."
"I left him. I left him and my work and my home and now... Mom I don't have
anywhere to go." It really, really hurt to admit her weakness, to ask for the help of a
women who she hadn't really known since she'd been eleven... fifteen years ago. She got
letters and pictures and short weekend visits, while Linda was in a touring group. Not
many of her plays came to the Sacramento suburbs.
"Sarah of course you can stay with me...," Linda trailed off and Sarah waited for
the inevitable "but" of the conversation.
"I know its short notice, but I have enough money for air fare to New York and..."
Sarah waited, setting herself up for more heartbreak as she let her hopes lift. She always
did that, her mother had a enigmatic personality and sparkling charisma. Even as a child
when Linda canceled visits with short notice, Sarah would find it bittersweet... at least
Momma had been happy.
"Listen, sweetheart, its tough right now," Linda began, her voice dipping low,
unlike much she had done before. Somehow she wasn't the same actress with the same
bravado she had always displayed.
"Another play?" Sarah questioned.
"...and you can come over here in a few months... two, or... no three!" Linda
Williams continued on as if she hadn't even heard Sarah speak. Sarah just smiled and
looked out the single grimy window in the "office" as the man in the overalls pulled up
with her car.
"Yeah, I understand." But she didn't. She really didn't. Why was it that her
Mother couldn't have time for her? In the midst of New York, in the richest of
neighborhoods at a penthouse! and her Mom couldn't clear out her life just enough to fit
Sarah. She didn't say anything that she felt.
"I know its been hard since your Dad and Karen... well, and now this with Brian.
But, your Aunt Mimi has a big house with a lot of room, and a lot of space," Linda paused
and breathed deeply, "She's had Toby over there ever since the accident."
Sarah inhaled sharply. Was it her pride that had conveniently forgotten the
farmhouse in the middle of Oklahoma... the closest neighbor some four miles down a
loosely paved road? Or was it the fact that she didn't want to be remembering her
childhood and the family trips out to the farm before her Mom decided to move on to
bigger and better things? At that point, however, it was her only option. Maxed-out
credit cards could only pay for so many plane flights and Holiday Inn one-nighters.
"I'd forgotten."
"You take care of yourself, Sarah."
Sarah watched the man in the overalls moving around her car, and squat down in
front of the tireless hub. His pants were low... too low, and Sarah got more of a sight
than she ever needed to see. Somehow the comical Redneck made the situation a bit
lighter.
"I will... and thanks."
They said their good-byes in short, choppy sentences, and then Sarah let the phone
slide back into its cradle. Mr. Overalls was cranking her car down, and she was surprised
to see a brand new tire glistening where there hadn't been one just a few moments earlier.
She couldn't assume anything bad about their service.
The air was dusty and stale when she left the office, and as the screen door clapped
back into its aluminum frame she heard the phone ringing again. Sarah was glad that it
was no longer her choice to make about answering it or not. She merely shaded her eyes
and opened her purse, indicating to the man that she was ready to go.
"Fill 'er up?" the man asked, taking a red bandanna from his pocket to dab at his
sweaty forehead, creased with thick lines. He obviously didn't care about the phone
ringing, and so Sarah tried her best to put it out of her mind.
"Yeah," she decided, letting her purse fall back around her shoulder, "I have a long
way to go."