Faces in the Fire by Hines

gone.
    Kurt opened the door to the cab, climbed inside, fired up the diesel, sat, and listened to the clattering of the exhaust for a few moments. On the floor of the passenger side the dead man’s shoes seemed to glow with a dark, oily sheen, pushing the image of the catfish into his mind once more.
    He waited for the static to break in again, but it didn’t. Only the catfish, implanted in his brain.
    Instead of static, he heard the sound of hydraulics nearby. He turned and noticed a large garbage truck emptying giant bins of trash into its belly, compacting the trash into tight folds.
    Kurt smiled.
    He grabbed the shoes, crawled out of the cab of his truck, and walked over to the garbage truck. He hailed the driver, held up the shoes, and pointed to the rear of the truck. The driver gave him a thumbs-up, so Kurt walked to the rear of the truck to throw the shoes into the gaping maw.
    The driver emptied another bin of trash before he hit the hydraulics again. Iron jaws clamped down on the garbage, and a large plate of metal pushed it to the front of the truck’s payload. Kurt caught a glimpse of one shoe, pinched against the side of the compartment for a moment before the iron compactor shredded it with the rest of humanity’s discarded past.
    18.
    â€œSo, Kurt, tell me about yourself,” Todd said, sitting in his chair.
    He hadn’t yet adjusted, folding one leg up in the chair and staring at him thoughtfully. But Kurt knew he would soon. Todd always did in these sessions.
    â€œLike, what do you want to know?”
    â€œWhat kind of person are you?”
    Kurt shrugged. “Working on being a trucker, you know. That’s about it.”
    â€œA trucker, yes. Why do you think that is? What is it about your past that makes you want to be a trucker?”
    Kurt bit his tongue, literally and figuratively, as he thought about the only thing he knew of his past. Because when he’d awakened, in the fire, the only items he had were a driver’s license with his name, an acceptance letter from High Road Truck Driving School, and about ten thousand dollars in cash.
    The cash thing had always troubled him, but he’d never told Todd about it. Or the fire. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
    â€œWhat I mean,” Todd continued, “is just this: you were going to become a trucker before your blank slate, right? You’d already applied to the school, been accepted. So that’s a link to your past. Something to explore. But more than that, I think it says a bit about you.”
    â€œLike how?”
    â€œWhat’s appealing about trucking?”
    Kurt had to admit the whole thing did appeal to him; he’d done well in the school and felt perfectly matched to trucking. “Well . . . I suppose the open road.”
    â€œAnd where does the open road lead to?”
    â€œI don’t know. Anywhere, I suppose. Forward.”
    â€œForward. Interesting.”
    â€œWhy?”
    Todd folded his left leg beneath him, shifted, and settled in the chair again. Kurt smiled; he knew it had to happen sometime. It was something solid, something that marked their time together.
    â€œIt’s not like I’ve done a personality inventory or anything, Kurt, but I’m guessing a lot of truckers like the lifestyle because it’s solitary. Not much contact with other people, lots of time on the road alone, being the captain of your own ship, as it were.”
    â€œI suppose. I mean, that sounds good to me.”
    â€œBeing on the road means never staying in one place for long. In your case, it may mean you’re running from something in your past—running from something even before you lost your memory.”
    Kurt hesitated, thinking of his recent conversation with Jenny Lewis, the detective. If she was right, he had a lot to run from. “Maybe.”
    Todd leaned back in his chair. “But when I asked you why you wanted to be on the open road, you said because it meant