Toby Mason

Toby didn't do what his parents wanted; he quit school, stuck out his thumb and went to California. Suburbia wasn't enough. This was before the internet opened up the world. If you didn't find it in the movies or TV or the library, you had to go there in person. He went coast to coast on his thumb five times and once on his motorcycle, and those trips and the folks he met were as much an education as he ever had. When people know they're never going to see you again they reveal truths they ordinarily would not.

One night as the stars slowly appeared above a wheat field west of Last Chance Colorado, he saw more sky than he'd ever thought possible. Stars everywhere he looked, from overtop his toes as he lay there, to the mountains behind his head. He wasn't on Earth anymore. He was floating in this sea of lights and suddenly he was very small. Vast and small, the why and not, the whole and the tiniest pieces fit together beyond words. He's been trying to find them ever since.