Plans.

Somewhere in a quiet little town in Northern Illinois is a little gas station. It’s not much to look at, you may have seen it and never paid any mind. This little gas station used to be a mom and pop shop with a little garage attached for giving oil changes and tires rotations to soccer moms and boys whose fathers never taught them to do it themselves. Now it’s a Shell. One must imagine a couple’s dreams at business ownership were set back on that spot.

Just down the street is a park. You can see it from the little gas station that used to be a mom and pop shop. At this park, children play on the playground. Young boys and girls play football, baseball, and softball at various points of the year. Dads will cheer their sons and daughters on. Some are made proud, others disappointed. The kinds of dads who teach their kids to change their own oil. They make plans to live out their athletic dreams vicariously through their children. Some are very talented. But maybe they like music more. Still. Dad has his plans.

Plans. God laughs.

Dog owners walk their dogs at this park, too. Couples stroll around, some with dogs, some without. Teenagers get up to no good there. There’s a little forest just past the football field notorious for teenagers getting up to no good.

All a manner of life takes place on this obscure little northern Illinois street. It may even be undistinguishable from any other suburban street in the United States, save for the climate.

Summers there are warm and often humid. There is green everywhere and the air can be thick with the smell of cookouts. Winters are long and often bitingly cold. The sky is gray and, while the snowfall can be very beautiful, its beauty quickly gives way to ice and slush and snow blackened on the side of the road by car exhaust. Fall and Spring are cold, too, mostly. In the fall, chill sets in early. In the Spring it retains its grip as long as possible.

…

Down the street from this park, almost smack dab in the middle between the park and the little Shell gas station that used to be a mom and pop shop, there is a house. Nothing out of the ordinary to see from the outside.

A beautiful girl lives there.

There’s a boy who loves her. She loves him back too.

This girl had a quality about her that could almost be electric, and she was stunningly beautiful. There were lots of boys who chased her. But she loved this boy. He loved her back, too.

This girl would often contend that she could not bear to finish a story. She never wanted to know the ending.

Maybe it was for fear of tragedy. Maybe though, she felt that not knowing the ending meant the story never ended. There could be a comfort in that. Often on late night walks through the park down the street from the little Shell gas station, the boy would play the contrarian. Try to see if he could change her mind. He never could. She was more stubborn than he.

He had to know the ending. Indeed, no matter how tragic, it was the most interesting part.

…

This park, down the street from the little Shell gas station that used to be a mom and pop shop, was the scene of many late night walks with this boy and girl who loved each other. They would talk about this or that, or nothing at all. They would share cigarettes and she made him promise to quit before they got married. They made plans. They sat at the bench and proclaimed their love for each other. Young and in love. They had hope. They made plans.

Plans. God laughs.

Maybe, sometimes, they’d stop at this little Shell gas station and fill up their tanks on their way to this place or that. It meant very little to them. Just another gas station.

The former proprietors of the little mom and pop shop would stop by the little Shell gas station sometimes, too. They would get gas, and stand on the spot where their dreams collapsed.

They had plans once too.

…

Years would go by. The young boy and the young boy, now perhaps a young man and a young woman, kept loving each other. Not the same love as before. More mature, perhaps. In its way, it blossomed from simple passion into an impossibly close friendship. They became family in their own way.

The young man, now, had grown to love this young woman more than his own life. More than anything he thought possible. He imagined getting a normal job, and having a normal house with children. He’d teach them how to change their own oil, and let them play baseball, or football, or music if they would like. He had no desire to live vicariously through anyone else. Above all odds, all he wanted was firmly within his grasp.

He made plans.

…

Granted, all was not always perfect. The young man and woman surely fought, had the disagreements all couples had. No sweat. They always made up.

On nights when the young man wasn’t around, the young woman would go for walks in this park by herself. Maybe, an idea began to creep into this young woman’s mind.

Maybe, she thought, she didn’t want to know the ending. Maybe, she thought, she ought to stop reading before the ending.

Perhaps for fear of tragedy.

She made plans.

…

There are few certainties.

Here’s one:

Late one cold spring night, the girl stopped at the little Shell gas station that used to be a mom and pop shop.

Where she planned on going is no certainty.

Here’s another:

She collapsed there.

Late one cold spring night, at the little Shell gas station that used to be a mom and pop shop, the young woman, for whom the young man would surely have killed and died for, thought her last thought.

What truly happened, other than that, is no certainty.

…

Perhaps, the young man would wonder, love was truly not enough. None of it was enough to the young woman to make life worth living.

Indeed, if life itself wasn’t worth living, what chance did he stand with her?

Perhaps, she felt she had figured out the ending. The sad, tragic truth. That love just wasn’t enough. She never wanted to know that.

The young man, though, he needs to know.

Now he does.

Does he?

Surely there’s more to life than one tragic truth. She’ll never know.

That’s just how she wanted it.

…

Here’s one last certainty:

Sometimes, late at night, the young man who loved the young woman more than life itself will drive by that little Shell gas station that used to be a mom and pop shop. Sometimes, he’ll even get gas there.

He’ll stand on the very spot where his dreams, and all the very ideas he once held as truths, collapsed. Much like the former proprietors of the little mom and pop shop.

He’ll stand there and look down the street to that park.

He won’t be going back there.

…