Suzie Whitmore got her period during her sixth grade gym class. Dodgeball red on hospital white. Dressing room nurse’s office. They say children’s laughter is like bells, and for Suzie her ears never stopped ringing.

When she got home, she would climb out to the roof and watch the sun set on the valley, watching the colors, hot rising air on her face. When the needles turned blue the air got crisp, made goose bumps on her arms. But she would still sit straight-backed and tall, tall on her hill and on her house, seeing the sun down. She did it every day.

Raymond Berret got his job at the Skylight Diner in tenth grade. He was “cook,” feeding patrons from across a window and bar. He worked in the evenings at first, then earlier, then later. Soon he didn’t have to look up to know his job, a patented one-man Henry Ford assembly line.

Scoop and measure the grain, dole it out in heaping chunks, give the feed to the grey lady whose bosom sags more and more with passing time. She delivers them to the flannel cows perched at the bar, hooks the bags to their ears. Subtle grind of molars. Then the smoke of dying machinery. Door squeaking. Repeat at next rush, if necessary.

He would leave the feed house late most times. He felt as if he were being let out to pasture, only he knew the gate would swing open again the next day to let him back in. The time between the end of one shift and the start of another was set in stone the same.

Have a drink, he would think outside the Skylight. Be the working man. Bar’s right down the street. Go in there and order a stout, reliable beer. Lean on the jukebox. Smile at the blonde in the corner. It’ll be easy.

But he would always dawdle at the turn between bar and home for a moment, grind foot to pavement, and turn up the hill towards homestead. Light the cigarette lifted from grey lady’s purse.

Once home, he would go to the refrigerator and take three or four long gulps of orange juice. Vitamin C. It’s all the body really needs. His mother would have long since gone to bed, so he would sit in the living room in the flaking green leather armchair and watch the sun rise through a narrow window pointing east. He passed time with cigarettes rolled from a pouch of cheap corner store tobacco, smoking on the hours.

He didn’t miss sunrises, knew that it always came up. Does the sun rise if everyone in the empire is at tea? Maybe there’s really only one person keeping watch, and that’s the only thing that keeps the world spinning. Everyone else would roll over and go back to bed. You don’t know it really happened unless you were there, and so Raymond was always watching.

Once he hadn’t gone straight home. He just kept walking on Main St. instead of taking the turn up the hill on Sheeley Ave. He walked past the darkened storefronts of Eli’s Shoes, Hartman Auto, Lester’s Meats…under too many streetlights to count. He walked down the valley, until the roads went dark and he could make out cow fields sprawling.

The only reason town folk came out this far was for the drive-in movie theater, owned and operated by the same kindly old gentleman who had kept the silver screen lit for decades. Youths flocked there to bask in the glow of life; while Raymond didn’t own a car, he still had fond memories of camping on the hill behind the giant screen and watching the flickering corona of light spilling out of a dark box.

He found himself there again, only he wasn’t alone. Now his clearing perch was filled with bodies, some writhing in cool grass, others slowly pulsing orange like fireflies. Raymond didn’t approach—he sat to the side of the clearing in the dark bushes, going unnoticed, eyes on the silent monolith at the base of the hill.

A stout, reliable beer. He eyed the forms that flittered in and out of darkness, whispering laughter to one another. He ran his fingernails across his teeth, feeling the grit, and wondered if the enamel would peel and leave gouges. He breathed in the night air and wanted a smoke, but sat still anyways.

A sharp snap echoed across the clearing and illuminated the center for a second, and in that instant Raymond saw clearly the forms, not much younger than he, that had climbed all the way to the top of the hill. Now they were tall, standing above the rest of mankind and loving it.

Another burst of light, and he saw them moving, swaying as one being and intertwined with the grass. They spoke with one voice in a common language, and ascended to this spot with hellos and smiles. Probably stuffed into big, hulking station wagons, all pressed together close on the bench seats. They would see each other again tomorrow and wave simultaneously.

And Raymond couldn’t stand it, couldn’t stand to sit in his spot when everything was so different. He wished there was a movie playing; he hoped it would stay clear until morning so he could see the sun; he wanted to bum a smoke; most of all, he wanted to sleep. The forms in the darkness would sleep—sleep when they were ready until their appetite was sated.

The walk back up the hill was long.

Raymond Berret sat down in the tired leather chair just as the sky was coloring, when rays were shifting on the trees. He dropped tobacco into a slip of paper, rolled it around between his fingers for a second, then licked it closed. He placed it next to the ashtray.

When the glow of the sun touched his face, he was asleep.

Raymond Berret rose for work late in the afternoon. He always did, even on the days he was off. Then as the evening approached and the cows came in from pasture, he would start walking down the long road to the valley, watching the shadows creep closer together. And sometimes he’d see Suzie Whitmore on his way, perched on her rooftop, looking west.