Main Char slammed on the brakes of his. vehicle, completely failing to preserve that which he hoped to preserve by slamming on his brakes. This was not irony, but misfortune. For Main was normally quite adroit when it came to things of this nature- Main's was a brain that clicked along at perhaps one of the appropriate units above the national average. Thus for an average person when confronted with a great big fat bird in the middle of the road while driving, the person, not the bird, very fast, the millisecond to consider whether it's worth it or not to stop for the bird is enough time to be unable to stop for the bird, no matter what the decision is. This is irony. But for Main it was merely misfortune, because for him the millisecond would have been more than enough time to not only decide whether the bird was worth it but also to apply the brakes and grant the great big fat feathery bird extended life, in fact he usually only need a picosesond, and sometimes when he'd been riding the Coca Cola high that was every American's God given right, only a nanosecond. But Main was tired for having driven all day, and, indeed, from having driven all day, he had no coca cola or any other appropriate substitute to induce heightened awareness, and the millisecond wasn't enough, and neither was the decisecond that he actually took, and no one need ever know that if he had only taken even a centisecond that he would have decided, "Nah," but he second-guessed himself and extended it, the consideration, by an order of magnitude, and therefore maybe it was ironic that when he decided that the bird deserved to live, at the exact moment when his muscles twitched to engage the break, at that very instant, I mean, if you had frozen time at the to-the-eighth-decimal-place moment in time, the big fat feathery multi-colored but predominately dark bird with a bright red beard thing hanging form it's neck was resting it's head on Main Char's vehicle's bumper. Maybe not actually resting, for the bird did not have time to relax its neck muscles enough to rest, as it were. But anyone who took a photo at that exact singular point in time sure would have thought the poor li'l birdy was takin' a li'l snoozey-wooze, ahh, shucks.

Fatigue filtered back through the flying feathers and the short burst of adrenaline flowing through Main's heart and in front of his eyes, not necessarily respectively. Dully he blinked at the dark sky and the millions of ears of corn that surrounded it, the sky, and him, the Main. He managed to glance sideways and see on the side of the road, interrupting the rows and rows and rows of corn entirely unlike a tangent a small shack with a porch and a light and a sign.

Main tried but couldn't make out the sign, for although the light was good enough to see that there was a sign, The light was not good enough to actually read the sign. Is this irony? It's certainly not personification, for even if the light were able to read it wouldn't bother with the same old sign day after day after night after night. I mean the light was strong enough to read the sign by, you see.

Main hopped out of his car, standing on road-weary legs, and honestly I'm going to get with the story, really, I just need to mention this one last thing, and maybe a few later- no promises- it's about the road-weary legs- they were actually weary from being not used much as Main drove all day, and yea, that is irony. Okay. Despite his best efforts to deny it Main had to admit the air was crisp, and it was cool, and he let it roll around him and wash away a little of the fatigue that weighed down his eyelids. Lightly refreshed, he considered the bird. It was toast. (Don't worry- no comments on toast). Main shrugged. Just a bird. Or, at least in the thin light, it was just a bird.

Main walked up to the porch and tried to read the sign, but could not, despite the light which at this range was sufficient, for the sign was rusted. But judging from the open nature of the door next to which it sat, and the instinctive tugs on Main's subconscious that the sign made, it looked like this was a store, and it was doing business. Main entered.

Inside there was corn. Corn and corn and corn and corn. Corn in jars, corn in boxes, corn in barrels and crates and on shelves and in sleeves and hanging from the ceiling and stuffed in crannies and nooks and cubby holes and whatnot. Lots and lots of whatnot. Go to your dictionary and look up whatnot and erase the entry and put in corn and then describe to somebody who doesn't know what whatnot means this room and then have them look up whatnot in your new and improved dictionary and they will go, "Ah." There was corn mash and corn oil and corn kernels and corn cakes and corn biscuits and corn chips, of course, and corn flour (duh) and corn cobs and corn bowls. Corn syrup. Corn bananas! Corn substitute, even (don't tell anyone, but it was made out of corn). Corn clothes, corn shoes, corn hammers, corn wallpaper, corn carburetors corn thumb warmers (your thumbs, not corns') corn computers corn infantry helmets corn slippy slides corn lawn mowers corn old fashioned record turntables. Corn! Corn art, of all kinds, but for some reason, no postcards. Cornucopia? What do you think? And more pickled corn that you could shake a stick at, no matter how big the stick was, not matter how good you could shake it. Infinity?- do the dictionary thing again.

Main looked amongst the maizey maze, the mazey maize, and found amongst the paraphernalia associated with husks a very wrinkly, so wrinkly that I almost used the word very five times in a row, Native American Woman. Her wrinkles had wrinkles. She look like maybe she had been in the bathtub for about a hundred years, not just because bathtubs make you wrinkly but because so does a hundred years. Her skin was singularly amazing and served to distract Main completely from the Zea mays. She had a twinkle in her eye and smiled without any teeth. Main stomped towards the counter behind which she lurked.

"Excuse me, I hate to bother you at this hour, but I am hopelessly lost."

The lady looked at him and nodded her head. Then she put her head to one side, and, still grinning, shook it.

Main pulled a well-folded piece of paper form his back pocket and well-unfolded it on the counter. "I'm looking for a town called Haven Harbor." He indicated the map, which had two lines and a square on it. "My boss is having a dinner. He said I should take highway 11, but I guess I chose wrong when I left 11 half an hour ago?"

The lady looked at Main for a while, nodding, then at his map, shaking her head gently, as if to say no no no, no monsters gonna eat you, then looked back at Main and nodded some more.

Main looked back at her for awhile, and found himself nodding along with her. Then he shook his head. Must be the fatigue, he thought. "So, do you know how I can get back to 11? Or is there a direct root to Haven Harbor from here?"

The lady's head began to bounce in little circles, as if the muscles in her neck were to old and wise to bother with fighting over whether to nod or shake her head, and just did both.

Again, Main found himself mimicking the woman's head movements. It was very relaxing. This and corn, Main thought, may be the key to immortality. He shook his head again.

"So, no, then?" Main raise his eyebrows, then slumped his shoulders. "Okay." He took a step back from the woman, noting that her lack of teeth made her seem a little impish in her smile, as if a hundred years of living wrinkly meant you didn't have to speak to mere mortals. He looked around the room for a moment, getting lost in the full-blown corniness, then found a small refrigerator and pulled from it a cool bottle of corn-juice. He took it back to the counter. "A little refreshment, then. How much for the juice?"

The woman just looked at him, smiling, nodding here head, eyes twinkling. Maybe she's made of corn herself, Main thought.

"How much?" Main pulled his wallet out of the same pocket where the pseudo-map had lain, lied, been. "A dollar? Two dollars?" He began to pull bills from his fold.

The woman bobbed her head in circles.

Main sighed. He was tired. He was lost. He was late for the dinner, a little hungry, but certainly not in the mood to become even a little upset at the ancient native woman's inability or unwillingness to communicate. Sighing again, he regrabbed the bottle, returned it to its cooler, and left the store.

He stood on the porch for a moment, surveying the road. It went in two directions- the one from which he'd come, and the one toward which he'd been going. Main thought about flipping a coin, but knew that if he did that he would ignore the result and go whichever way he wanted to go.But he didn't know which way he wanted to go. Main nodded his head a few times. He decided that since he would have ignored any toin coss (he was tired) that meant he was pig headed and as such he should continue in the direction that he was going, wrong or not.

Just as he was willing the muscles in his legs to move he heard the door to the store creak, and it occurred to him in that kind of epiphany that occurs to you when you're overcome by near utter fatigue, that the door hadn't creaked when he'd gone through it. Something about doors and old women, they, the doors, have to creak when old women go through them, especially when a porch is involved. The old woman appeared at Main's side, and put the bottle of corn juice into his hand as she gazed out over the rows and rows and rows of corn.

Main looked down at her, and almost opened his mouth to say thanks, but decided that whatever language she spoke, a smile would probably more than suffice. He smiled at her. She turned and smiled back.

He was about to step down to his car again when the old woman reached up and put a hand on his shoulder, returning her gaze to the corn. Main waited and gazed with her. Despite the dark he could make out a difference in the texture of the rows before them and the night sky. He felt the crisp air moving through him, air that had moved through corn, whispered through its husk and stalks, wind that had circulated over the rich earth to come and swirl around him and this native woman, wind that moved through them as much as around them and back over the corn. He breathed, and decided that whether or not he made it to the dinner, that was okay.

The woman lifted her other hand, and pointed down the road in the direction from which Main had come. Main nodded his head. He staved off a sudden impulse to give the woman a hug, and instead gave her another smile as he stepped down to his car. He got in, started 'er up, and in that way that's only possible on deserted roads, slowly drove of with a crunch of gravel.

The old wrinkly Native American Woman remained on the porch, smiling, sometimes nodding her head, sometimes shaking it, seemingly unwary of the slowly dropping temperature of the cooling night. For indeed it was night now, and not afternoon, although it was still dark, of course, and still quite corny. But don't worry, that's all I'm going to say. Not all, of course. All about that, anyway. Anyway, the old woman stood on the porch, gazing, nodding, and changed positions not at all as a pair of headlights appeared opposite from the direction that Main had both arrived and departed. The car rolled up gently to the front of the store, stopped, and stopped. And indeed it was Main who stepped out of the car, a large sheepish grin on his face.

"You know, I may be lost, but I'm starting to notice the difference and nuances in these seemingly monotonous corn rows." Main cocked his head to the side and gazed upwards, as if contemplating the words that had just come out of his mouth. He shrugged and gazed at the woman. "Guess I'm hopelessly lost again."

They nodded at each other for a while.

Finally the woman yawned widely, and when she was done, smiled at Main and pointed back in the direction he had come. She nodded her head a little more, bigger nods maybe, and then with a creak of the door, went back into the store.

Main gazed after her, and thought about going in to get another corn juice. It had been surprisingly good. Main decided that since he hadn't been able to purchase the previous one, to ask for another despite his wallet's contents or his willingness to trade them, he'd just be insulting the nice lady. He decided to get along. The calmness of the rows would soothe him and guide him to his destination. He got in his vehicle, turned it around in three neat points, and drove off, scattering dust and feathers.

Feathers.

Main's headlights picked out the corn and, more awake know, Main realized that what had been splattered all over the road was not merely an unfortunate bird who had swooped too low at the wrong moment, or failed to fly away soon enough, but a fat thanksgiving turkey. Main had killed an honest to goodness turkey, probably the old woman's, probably here constant companion or at the very least her dinner for the coming week. Main slowed his car and stopped. Guilt washed over him. That poor old lady, so nice, and she even gave him a free corn juice. Main looked down at the juice bottle and felt a fresh pang of guilt stab his otherwise temporarily satiated gut. What have I done? he thought. And how can I tell her? Biting his lip, shaking his head, Main performed another three point turn and drove back to the store.

In the few minutes that it took, Main began to be nervous that the woman's store was one of those bazaars that appeared out of nowhere at odd moments, and then whisked away into the nether world from which it came, and only the awful aftermath of the literal interpretation of the wishes to the genie reminded one that the shop had ever been there. Or maybe this was one of those twilight zone episodes where the same store appeared over and over again on the same road, and Main was destined to wander this one road forever and ever, which to him would seem longer, for time doesn't pass on singular roads.

But eventually, and a short eventually too, he came across the store, and stopped. He searched for some evidence of his murder to present to the woman, a feather or a leg, but either wind or the birds last efforts had removed the corpse to the corn, for Main found nothing. Feeling twice guilty, he went into the store.

Corn! The woman was behind her counter again, nodding, smiling without any teeth, and wrinkly as all get out. Hanging his head, Main approached her counter.

She smiled and nodded.

Main took a deep breath. "Look, I need to tell you something. I." Main bit his lip. "I killed your turkey."

The woman nodded and smiled.

Main contemplated miming a squawking turkey with his fists in his armpits, and then making screeching noises like a car and a loud thud and jumping onto his back with his legs in the air and a loud croak. But he decided against it, only in part because although he was sure that the lady would think him crazy, sick, or in dire need of the police, a small part believed she would just go on nodding and smiling and he would look the utter fool in her silence.

"Your turkey, ma'am. Big fat bird? I hit it. With my car, earlier."

Gobble.

Main turned and saw, strutting out from the various corn entities and products, a great big fat tom turkey, black on the whole with white on the tips of its feathers and a bright red fleshy thing hanging from its beak.

Main was tired, but he was also full of the breeze from the corn and the autumn air. He didn't know how he knew, but he knew, somehow knew, that this was the exact same bird he'd struck with his car.

He stared at it for awhile (the bird, not his car), then turned and looked at the woman. "He's okay."

The woman nodded and smiled, and her eyes seemed to laugh.

"Okay then! Allright." Main smiled. He felt pretty good. He was almost glad he was lost.

"Have a good thanksgiving, ma'am." He smiled at her, waived, and walked out the door.

Once again he stood on the porch and looked out at the corn. Once again, the door creaked and the woman shuffled out next to him, and handed him another bottle of corn juice. Main took it gladly. The woman returned to her store, and Main Char hopped in his. vehicle. He drove away, drinking the juice.

Happy Ending? No, content and in general just about glad that it's over but still happy it happened ending.