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The old man shuffles to a stop on a broken dirt road. He feels a close kinship with the parched, packed dirt; he wonders if he’s older than it. And after a long time of putting one foot in front of the other, on dirt roads so much like this one that they’ve become one labyrinthine, world-binding ur-road in his mind, he tilts up his bolero hat and lifts his eyes—away from what moves him and toward where he’s going. An oddly familiar cluster of adobe slabs and metallic roofs lie ahead, rust glinting in merciless sunlight. The unassuming town