You hear so much. Y’know? And how much of it is true. Somebody told you. They said it. Your ear received. That’s why it’s called hearsay.
Here we sort out what was said. Follow Koa into the Australian outback or Dirk to the International Space Station. (Long distance, or what?) Funny, of course. But way deep.
Free will? Free Willy?
See? This is number 18 for your author, and the eighth collection of short fiction. You miss it at your peril. (More than 334 Footnotes!)
From Footnote #79:
Couples separated for lengthy periods are apparently more likely to split. There seems to be a tendency to “love the one you’re with” as Stephen Stills® framed it in 1970. Koa, in the present instance, was alone. Well, no, he’d picked up a tick a couple of days before he ran by Connie and Bill, but the attraction wasn’t mutual. We may agree with Boudleaux Bryant® who wrote “Love Hurts” back in 1960 (first recorded by the Everly Brothers® and subsequently by a wide range of pop stars) but the essential hurt in most cases involves parting. Koa felt no remorse when he removed the over-affectionate arachnid from his epidermal sheath. (For every tick there comes a tock, whether early or distressingly late. Satisfaction is ever and always in the belly of the beholder. The tick clearly felt a sense of attachment. But, mostly, Koa runs alone.)Mostly. There was that stretch way west of Walla Walla where a high school track team joined him for about five miles, but the kids were panting too heavily to engage in conversation, so it was company without companionship. Of course, in the course of a long distance run it seems possible that a person might consider the BIG PICTURE. Where do we come from, where do we go? Or, de minimus, (Latin!), where did I come from and where am I going? He’s obviously had some time to think. This sprint might appear to be a short hop to those of us who have only been following it since page 14, but hold your horses! (Or wallabies.) This adventure has obviously transpired over many years. Even for those of us in top physical condition, chasing sheep from Down Under via South and East Asia, through Siberia thence Alaska, across western Canada and the Pacific northwest, over the Rockies, via the Great Plains, stone-stepping some minor tributary of the Mighty Mississippi, and so forth and so on (as my grandfather so often said) … takes some serious clock.