Towers that pieced through the skies, disappearing into the clouds. Immense bridges spread across large rivers. Crowds so numerous, they took on the form of waves. Bright neon lights that shone more intense than the stars themselves.

It was a promise. An ideal. A wish.

A longing, yearning dream.

So distant and detached, it felt like a fairytale.

Like an abstract concept.

A world I’d seen only on magazines and TV. On books and online when I visited the library. One I’d heard countless stories of. Stories of a world vastly different than ours.

Compared to that…

The endless fields lined with vegetation. The dirt roads that kicked up sandstorms when dry or sank like quicksand after the rain. The small houses built by their inhabitants. And the distant cries of farm animal.

It was the same scenery I’d grown up in. The same scenery I’d seen all my life. Nothing changed. It always remained the same.

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And so, too, did its inhabitants always remain the same. Always the same smiles and friendly greetings. Always the same stories and conversations. Always the same songs sang during parties. Celebrated for the same reasons as always.

A place where time itself seemed to have frozen. Or forgotten all about. Leaving it to continue to exist as it always had.

As I grew older. As I learned more. Of our culture and of that of the distance cities. Of the world we lived separated from. I began to crave more.

More knowledge.

More unknowns.

More change.

I began to crave life in the city.

Until that day had come, when I boarded the morning bus, luggage in hand. Instructions on my route written on a torn piece of notebook paper.

The same notebook paper my mom would write her shopping lists on, when she would send me to gather groceries around our small town. The same paper I used all throughout school up until now. The same paper Old Man Crow sold, in that small shop close to the lake I played at with the same group of friends I’d grown up with.

I reached into my pocket, feeling the loose page. It filled me a strange sense of nostalgia. Of the life I would soon be leaving behind. To chase ideals. A strange, melancholic nostalgia. Sadness.

Holding my tears back with my breath, I tightly gripped my luggage.

And boarded the five-a.m. bus.