After everyone had blinked a couple times, Rilke imagined a mountain stream, fixated on the way the cold water splashed through the fine, sparkly gravel and sand that lay at the bottom of the bed, the sediment that had been carried on an extensive underground journey via subterranean crevasses and fissures in the bedrock. He ...

Signaling to nobody, Rilke turned onto the state route from the gravel access road he and Kyle had taken to reach their hiking trails in the Santa Cruz mountains. One minute, the highway sprawled out before him, plodding along through the California sunset, weaving in and out of hills, the way two-lane roads will when ...