Art kept a slow, relaxed pace. He wasn’t one to move very quickly to begin with, but it wasn’t the sand that was slowing him down. It seemed to me that Art had something he wanted to talk about, and so I waited patiently for him to start talking, knowing that once he got going, I was going to be in for a long ride. Anyway, I was still wondering what he knew about Jade. And how he knew about her. And what or who else he might know.

To my right, the cloud-filled crater pulses with occasional flashes of muted, blue light. All around me, an inexplicable landscape littered with grand spheres and domes, a gameboard of giant proportions. Above me, a blackness so deep and impenetrable that the millions upon millions of stars within it can only play at illuminating the infinite. And before me, just ahead of me, too distant to be seen clearly, but close enough that I can discern their forms, two figures moving in my direction.

I stepped through the open doorway onto hard, rocky ground. The surface was covered in a layer of fine dust that shifted beneath my first tentative steps. The sky above was a deep and limitless expanse of blackness, dotted with untold stars that shimmered in the distance. It was utterly breathtaking, as it dawned on me that I’d just crossed a threshold from one world to another.

I became intimate with the intermediate, and for a long time that suited me well enough. Maybe that explains my easy accommodation of things like oracular guitar picks, inexplicable coincidences, trance-inducing shop window displays, and vinyl LP-powered teleportation. Adaptability is a kind of practice. Still, I can't help but wonder what will happen when we finally stop moving.

On a clear night, walking along moonlit sidewalks with the sea’s nocturnal murmuring in my ears and all the jewels of the the night sky on full display, I can imagine our small beach town as an island, adrift under the shimmering constellations, a circle of sanctuary seafront, insulated from the chaos of the world.

The car cruises low and steady, and from my reclined position I can’t really see or sense the road. Framed overhead by the car’s panoramic moonroof, the sky modulates from a pale, cloudless turquoise to an ever-deepening cobalt. If I didn’t know better, I’d say Vera and I were gliding high upon a futuristic monorail, or even flying above the otherworldly terrain.

I came to the entrance of the Minor Seven Curiosity Shop at around twenty past ten. My jacket glistened with a misty sheen. The solid wood door, painted a lustrous black, was at the street level of a three story brick townhouse. Both the door and the building were old, old, old.

It isn’t a very long ride, but then, time passes differently when we’re moving, especially when traveling alone. The mind tends to wander when riding a train at night, settling on ordinary details that somehow provoke odd introspections and occasional imaginative flights.

String lights adorn the rails and masts of the larger vessels, where silhouettes of laughing partygoers can be seen, gathering on decks designed for nights like this. Already some of the brightest stars poke holes through the dark canopy that separates our world from the great expanse.

The walking is easier closer to the water, where the sand is saturated and compressed, and the bare footprints of other beach walkers can be observed.