It was twelve o’clock midnight. The sun had long since faded, and the stars burned their image into the black canvas of night over a little suburb. It was the quaint little town of Benton, Arizona. There were only two major roads: King Street and Highway 45. Highway 45 ran north to Phoenix, and King Street ran only the width of the town. On King Street was a small brick building with a large brick chimney. A sign on it read: Antonio’s Pizzeria. The building had weathered serious damage in its lifetime. Some bricks were missing, others were discolored, and the door had claw marks running up and down it from the stray dogs that would try to make their way inside to find extra scraps of food. It was a quaint, little, pizza parlor in a quaint, little town.

Two headlights flashed across the glass of the buildings, and pulled closer to the pizzeria. A battered station wagon with wooden panels screeched to a halt on the cracked asphalt. In his ripped converse, Gary stepped out onto the curb. He was a skinny boy, with shaggy hair. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in weeks. He walked out of his car and into the cold desert air. Keys jingled around his neck as he approached the door to the pizzeria, and he forced the key into the sticky lock. The door swung open into the warm restaurant that smelt of cilantro, and grease--Italy, and the people who lived there.

“Finally back?” a voice yelled from behind the counter.

It was Gary’s boss Antonio, who had just gotten done cleaning the dishes and closing up the restaurant. He was a large man with thick black hair, and a thick black and silver caterpillar on his lip.

“Yes, sir,” Gary said. “That was my last delivery.”

“Why’d it take so long? They live across the border?”

“No sir, I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

Antonio scoffed and threw his rag in the sink. He took off his apron, put on a leather jacket, and made his way to the door. “If I had a nickel for every time you kept me past closing, I’d be a rich man.”

Gary put the cash in the register, and then went out to have a smoke with Antonio. Gary pulled the death stick out of its carton and asked Antonio for a light. Together, they sat in the dark silence of the night and puffed cancer into their lungs.

“Hey, Antonio.”

“Yeah, kid.”

“I know it’s a lot to ask, but my mom just came back from the hospital. Do you think I could pick up some extra hours? I need to pay off her bills.”

“Kid, you can’t work more hours than there are in a day.”

Gary let out a lung full of smoke. “I can pick up some hours during the day.”

“Don’t you have school during the days?” Antonio prodded.

“I’m dropping out.”

“Dropping out?” Antonio yelled. “What do you mean you’re dropping out? What? You think you’re gonna pizza boy for the rest of your life?”

Gary pulled another cigarette out and motioned to Antonio for the lighter.

“No, kid, I don’t think so.”

“Look,” said Gary. “I don’t plan on being a pizza delivery boy for the rest of my life. I have dreams. I have ambitions, but right now, I have to focus on my mom.”

“Gary, look at me,” Antonio took Gary by the shoulders and turned him “This time you have, your education, it’s important. Probably the most important time of your life. Don’t go waisting it on a lost cause.”

“My mom isn’t a lost cause.” Gary whispered.

“What was that?”

“I said my mom isn’t a lost cause, there’s hope for her.”

Antonio let out a sigh, and dropped his cigarette onto the ground, stamping it out. He took out his keys and walked towards his car. “You can pick up a couple extra shifts, but only if you promise me you’re staying in school.”

Gary stood silent for a while. “Okay.”

“You’ll stay in school then?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll stay in school. Now, can I have a light?”

Antonio threw the lighter across the parking lot, got in his old red pickup truck and sped off. Gary lit up his cigarette and drove home.

Gary’s home was small, and warn down. It smelled of cat litter and cigarettes. The couches were floral print and covered in plastic, and three cats laid on it licking and grooming themselves.

Gary threw his backpack down and all the cats scampered away. He sat down on the couch and took out a math assignment, some pencils and a calculator. He began writing vigorously, and halfway through his homework, he heard a shout from down the hall.

“Gary come here, sweetie!”

“Coming, mom!”

Gary walked down the dark hallway dimly lit by the bleeding light from a cracked door. The floorboards squeaked and creaked, and as he opened the door, it squealed like a whimpering dog. Gary’s mom, Ethel, laid in her bed. Her skin was wrinkled and sickly, green and she was attached to a machine monitoring her heart, and breathing. There was a lit cigarette in her hand, and a glass ash tray overflowing with cigarette butts next to her. The room was underscored by the beeping of the machines in harmony with Ethel’s wheezing.

“Gary, what did your boss say about picking up extra hours?”

Gary sat down on the bed with his mother and put her cigarette out in the ashtray. “He said that he’s willing to let me pick up a few extra shifts.”

“That’s great, honey. So, I’ll call the school and tell them you won’t be coming back.”

“Antonio said he would only give me the extra shifts if I stayed in school.”

“Stay in school? How does he expect you to get an education and have a full time job?”

Gary thought for a moment. “Well, mom, he says it’s important for me to think about my future. Think about my dreams outside of this town, ya know?”

Ethel burst into laughter coughing and spitting all over her bed. “Your dreams outside of this town?” she snorted. “What dreams do you have outside of this town. You’re gonna stay right here in Benton so you can take care of your mom. Just like you promised me you would.”

“Mom, I love you, and I love taking care of you,” said Gary as he wiped his mothers spit covered face with a rag. “But you won’t be around forever.”

A dark glint shot across Ethel’s eyes, “Don’t talk about your mother like that,” she hissed. “I’m a fighter. You know that.”

“I do, mom. I do know that, and I know you can fight, and I know that you can make it, but what happens when you’re ninety-five and I’m sixty? Do you expect me to keep delivering pizza?”

“When you’re sixty, I expect you to own the damn restaurant.” She cackled and spit again in a coughing fit.

Gary wiped her face clean, and kissed her on the forehead. “I love you, mom, but I need to stay in school.” He took the ash tray and a few dishes by the bed, and headed to the kitchen. He turned off the lights to his mother’s room. “Goodnight, mom. Get some rest.”

Gary drove to the parking lot of Antonio’s where he often went to think. He was on his fourth or fifth cigarette, he’d lost count, and had another ready to light. He sat on the cold hood of his car staring at the beautiful starry sky above him.

He thought of his mother, he thought of his teachers, and how they were pushing him harder and harder, and he thought of Antonio’s advice. It was too much. The pressure of everything weighed down so heavily, he felt trapped; suffocated. As Gary gazed into the stars, he dreamed of becoming one. He dreamed of becoming a bright, flaming torch in the heavens that everyone could see, that everyone in Benton would look up to.

A voice began echoing off the wall of Antonio’s. Beautiful, and pure, it sang through the dead of night, disembodied and heavenly.

“The stars at night

The shiver and bight

Of cold desert air.

Thin with thought

Thick with care.”


“Who’s there?” Gary said.

A pale, young, blonde girl, no older than twenty became illuminated by the lights outside Antonio’s. She was beautiful, with a sincere face not often seen in Benton.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“I wasn’t scared” Garry corrected. “That was beautiful.”

“Thank you,” she said sweetly. “That’s just what the desert’s been singing to me. Sometimes I like to go to places like this. Little, forgotten places. The uncharted is my muse.”

“Are you a musician?” asked Gary.

“No, more of a traveler, I think.”

“Well, you have a beautiful voice,” said Gary. “Where are you from?”

“Black Falls, South Dakota,” she said proudly. “A lot like this place. Quaint and hidden.” She stared at Gary for a while, beaming. “What are you doing here?”

“I live here.”

“No,” she chuckled. “What are you doing in this parking lot?”

“I’m thinking,” said Gary. “Just looking at the stars and thinking.”

“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen stars as beautiful as these,” said the girl as she tilted her gaze toward the sky. “Wow, they never cease to amaze me.”

“So, do you live in the city?” Gary asked.

“Sometimes,” she said.

Gary noticed her bag which had buttons pinned all over it. Each button was from a different city. His jaw slowly dropped as he observed all the places she had traveled.

“I travel all over the world and live wherever I’m welcomed,” she said. “Nothing opens up the mind and heart like meeting people from all walks of life.

She jumped up on the hood of the car with Gary and looked up at the sky with him. “What’s your story?”

Gary pondered for a moment, recalling all he could about his eighteen years in Benton. “I don’t have a story.”

“I didn’t have a story either,” she said. “But then I went out and I wrote one.” She smiled a bright smile that shot sparks down Gary’s spine, and reached to grab a button from her bag. “Why don’t you start here?” On the button, was a beautiful city skyline, like nothing Gary had ever seen before.

“Dubai.” Gary read aloud.

“Chase your stars, and write your story.” She smiled and kissed him on the cheek. “They’ll teach you that in France.” She hopped off of the car’s hood, and walked into the dark Benton night.

Gary watched until she disappeared and looked at the button she’d given him. He got in his car and drove home, to tell his mom what had happened.

“Mom!” he shouted as he burst through the door. “You’ll never believe it!” He ran down the hall and pushed open the cracked door.

“Mom--” Gary looked onto the bed and saw his mother lying still; her body looked cold. The room echoed with the sound of one, continuous tone from her heart monitor. All the excitement fell from his face and he stared upon what he realized was his mother’s grave. He walked over to her and sobbed. Tears poured onto his mother’s face. He looked into her empty eyes, pain in his heart, and wiped his tears from her face. In his pocket he felt the prick of a needle. He took the shimmering skyline out of his pocket and wiped his face clean of tears.
“Dubai”