It was November, just before Thanksgiving, and the man at the pump had been standing there for twenty minutes. The pump handle was in his hand, but no fuel was flowing—just a faint ticking sound from deep inside the nozzle, like something counting. He was wearing a gray hoodie with the hood up, and he kept looking over his shoulder at the rest stop's closed bathroom doors. I was parked two spaces away, watching him through my windshield because something about the way he stood made me not want to get out. When he finally turned, I saw his face—he was young, maybe early twenties, and his eyes were the color of the sky just before a storm. He told me he'd been driving for six hours, trying to get home, but every rest stop he passed had the same problem—the pumps ticked but never delivered. At first I thought he was just tired, maybe a little off, but then he showed me his receipt. It was from a station I'd never heard of, dated three years ago. The same receipt, he said, from every stop he'd tried. He'd stopped counting at forty-two. I didn't know what to tell him, so I offered him my phone to call for help. But when I held it out, he just shook his head. 'I don't think the numbers work anymore,' he said. Then he got back in his car, and I watched his taillights disappear down the highway. I still think about him sometimes—the way he didn't look back, the way his car's engine never made a sound.

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