Aron woke with something hard pressing into his ear. He reached under his pillow and pulled out a receipt. He hadn't gone to the diner last night, which meant someone—or something—had decided to do house calls. The paper was bent, grease-stained, but the words were printed sharp enough:
LISTEN BEFORE YOU LEAVE.
"Cute," Aron muttered, sticking it to the cracked mirror above his dresser with a piece of tape. "Town's doing fortune cookies now."
Downstairs, the garage stirred like a restless sleeper. A creak from the rafters, a drip from the sink, a faint tick-tick from cooling engines. The Impala's headlights flashed when Aron came down.
"You look worse than me after a cross-country haul," the car said.
"You look like you've never been washed," Aron shot back.
"That's a lifestyle choice."
A rusted sedan in the corner rattled. "Can you two keep it down? I was dreaming."
"Cars don't dream," Aron said, reaching for a wrench.
The sedan groaned. "Oh, we do. I was on a highway—six lanes, fresh pavement, no potholes, no speed bumps. Then you woke me up."
"Yeah, tragic." Aron ducked under the hood of the Impala.
The minivan piped up from the next bay. "Speaking of tragic—someone needs to tell my driver I know he's sneaking around. I can smell perfume that isn't his wife's, and there's lipstick on the back seat. Unless the twins started doing pageants, he's busted."
The pickup snorted so hard its bumper rattled. "Or maybe you're losing it. Been parked too long. Brain rust."
"Brain rust isn't real."
"Neither is your detective career," the pickup said.
Aron pinched the bridge of his nose. "Do you all hold meetings when I'm not around?"
"We call it venting," the Impala said. "You wouldn't understand. You're human. You bottle things up until therapy or drinking."
"Thanks for the analysis," Aron said.
He tightened the sedan's belt while it muttered about betrayal, swapped the van's oil while it sulked about infidelity, and tried to tune out the pickup's humming. The longer he listened, the more it felt like running a daycare for machines that thought they were people.
By midmorning, he was starving. He crossed the street to the diner, bracing for whatever cosmic prank it had queued.
Inside, the booths slouched in their corners, the ceiling fan spun without moving much air, and the coffee pot hissed as if it had a grudge. Aron slid into his usual seat. The waitress came by, pen behind her ear.
"Ordering?" she asked.
"No," Aron said. "I'm not playing today."
"Good." She left and came back five minutes later with boiled eggs, dry toast, and a glass of milk.
Aron blinked at the plate. "This isn't ordering."
"This is need," she said, sliding the receipt under the milk.
He cracked an egg with more force than necessary. "You're worse than the cars."
"Take that as a compliment."
He unfolded the slip. It read: ASK THE WAITRESS HER REAL NAME.
He looked up. "What's your name? Really."
"What do you think it is?" she asked.
"Not Mabel, like the tag says."
She smirked. "Then don't call me Mabel."
"That's not an answer."
"It's better than the truth." She walked off.
Aron chewed the egg, wishing it tasted like pancakes.
When he stepped outside, the whole town seemed littered with paper. Receipts in gutters, stuck to lampposts, crumpled in the grass. He bent to pick one up. Chewing gum, soda—and at the bottom: WEST IS NOT THE FIRST STOP.
Another taped to a telephone pole read: THE STATION WAGON LEFT THINGS UNSAID.
A third blew against his boot: FUEL IS NOT ALWAYS GASOLINE.
He shoved them into his jacket and kept walking. Across the street, an older woman picked up her own slip. She read it, nodded to herself, and tucked it into her purse. Curious, Aron crossed over.
"Mind if I see that?" he asked.
She frowned but handed it over. Blank.
"Was there writing?" he asked.
"Of course," she said. "Clear as daylight."
He tilted it, rubbed the surface. Nothing. He gave it back, and she smiled faintly like whatever it had said was hers alone.
Aron stood in the street, receipts crinkling in his pocket. "Great. Custom fortunes. I get paranoia; she gets wisdom."
Back at the garage, the Impala eyed him. "What's the haul today? Aisle five bargains? Don't tell me—'eat your vegetables'?"
"They want me to wait," Aron said, dropping the slips on the workbench. "Listen before I leave. Whatever that means."
"Maybe they're right," the Impala said. "Cars don't usually hand out pep talks. If they're telling you to slow down, maybe don't be an idiot."
Aron smirked. "Coming from a dented fender, that's rich."
"Scars are character," the Impala said.
The minivan chimed in again. "While we're giving advice—don't trust a driver who sings too loud. They're hiding something."
"Or they just like singing," the pickup said.
"Not everything's innocent."
Aron set down the wrench and rubbed his temples. "This is what purgatory sounds like."
Evening crept in, slower than usual, like the sun was stalling too. Aron spread his paper map across the bench. Coffee stains blotched the edges, someone else's ballpoint lines traced half-planned routes. He laid the receipts beside it:
FUEL UP. DON'T LOOK BACK.
ROAD LEADS WEST.
ASK THE STATION WAGON.
DON'T FORGET WATER.
LISTEN BEFORE YOU LEAVE.
WEST IS NOT THE FIRST STOP.
THE STATION WAGON LEFT THINGS UNSAID.
FUEL IS NOT ALWAYS GASOLINE.
His notebook sat open. He wrote in a steady hand:
Why west?
Why wait?
Who else sees the receipts?
Why does the waitress dodge her name?
Did the Oldsmobile choose the crash?
The Impala's lights flicked. "You're making homework out of this."
"Someone has to."
"Or you could drive until it makes sense."
Aron leaned back. "And if it never does?"
"Then you've got miles on your odometer instead of cobwebs."
He almost laughed. Instead he closed the notebook, tucked the receipts inside, and set it by the map.
Through the garage windows, Callywonka carried on like it didn't know it was strange. The barber-mayor closed shop. A kid threw a ball that bounced off a fence and back to him. Somewhere, a dog barked like a car alarm. Normal sounds. Yet Aron couldn't shake the feeling the whole town was leaning in, listening to him breathe.
The Impala coughed once. "So what now?"
"Now," Aron said, "I wait. Just a little."
"Good. I needed a nap anyway."
Aron switched off the lights. The garage exhaled in the dark, the same sigh it made every night. Upstairs, he lay on his narrow bed. The receipts stacked on the nightstand whispered with the fan's draft. He pictured himself driving out at dawn, but the image blurred at the edges. Not yet. Not tomorrow.
For the first time since deciding to leave, he accepted the idea that maybe the town wasn't ready to let him go.