Are You There God

 On the plain of Erebus in the kingdom of Hades, close by the black and waterless river Styx, i dreamed a witch's dream and found a hidden gnosis: the knowledge and conversation of a demon.  It rose up out of the tunnels beneath the earth and spoke in my soul like the nighttime anticipation of death.  It had the head of a man and the chest of a peacock, and its face was shrouded in shadows - shadows here, where there is no sun, in this place that is named "darkness."  I realized I was not afraid, because I knew its secret name.  Magic is the invocation of names, just as miracles are acts of faith and technology is the application of mind to stone.  The names of human persons are sacks to bind up the fragments of our selves, but the name of the jennaye are instructions to the world, and the jennaye must heed them as the water must heed the moon.

It's a truck stop.

Old school, the kind that still had showers and bunks so you can sleep off your eighteen hour long haul. With the kind of waitresses that still wore pastel dress uniforms with white aprons and called regulars 'sugar.' The pie is good, there better be good pie, and good chili, it's not a real beckon of trucking respite without good pie and good chili (at least that's what Margaret has been told). Without worn linoleum counter tops, buzzing florescent lights, stained yellow from decades worth of cigarette smoke and a jukebox in the corner that plays Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson and Jerry Reed almost exclusively; the place would be just another suburban pit stop where mom can pee.

No, this place has character. It's almost surreal to Margaret. She hasn't seen this many pairs of cowboy boots and trucker hats being worn non-ironically, well, ever. It's the cowboy boots, and the time she is paying attention to and the fact that her contact is thirty minutes late. Not the fact that it's mid-June, way past the time to be wearing turtlenecks and yet some of of the patrons are.