She sits near an open window, enjoying the last of the summer breezes. Her hand strokes the tabby in her lap absent-mindedly, but her eyes never stray from the pages of her book. The sun makes its arc across the sky, oblivious to the girl as she is to it. All the while she reads. Her eyes fly over the pages as a parched mouth would gulp cold, clean water. She reads of a bustling city, lights and colors everywhere, noise a constant companion. Like white on black, the stark contrast to farm life opens her eyes to possibility. She dreams of concrete instead of cows, shops instead of sheep. The world around her closes, the grass and plains of the Iowa farmland fades like water drying up the day after a rain. All that is left is the girl, her book, and her dreams of the city.

6,487 miles away, he sits at a crowded train station. Around him people hurry, always in a rush to do something, be somewhere. But the pages of the book in his hands tell him of a peaceful countryside where the purpose around him is only to live. The cows munch on grass with the sole purpose of living. Every day is a day to harvest food to live, to cook food to live, to build and repair your house. To live. He looks up from his book for a moment. A woman in a yellow blouse and dark pants jogs by looking at her watch. The other way, a young man runs in the direction of an approaching train talking in rapid Mandarin on the phone. The train roars in the boy's ears, making the whole platform vibrate. Soon, though, he is lost once again in his book stories of a different life.

And just maybe, someday their paths will cross.