Solitude and an inescapable idea are the perfect formula for creating an obsession, and nothing destroys peace faster than an obsession. Steve’s new yearnings became irrepressible. He acquiesced so readily to fantasies about the beautiful Maiden now living within him almost all the time that his ability to disown her almost evaporated. The joy of his evenings was spending time with her because it was even easier in the evening to let his heart smother his mind than it was during the day. These evening meetings of theirs satisfied something inside him that he hadn’t known was there until his night of dreams. But they left him in turmoil afterwards. His heart and his mind were no longer flowing in united opposition to a senseless world. Rather, they were clashing with each other now, each declaring the other insane for the opposite reason. His heart told his mind: Look where you are! How are you ever going to find her here? His mind told his heart: Look where you are! You’ve got everything you need right here.
On the first day of September 1920, the cacophonous firing of a motorcycle engine rent the pristine stillness of the early morning air in a wooded basin some twenty miles east and north of Munising, Michigan. A young man was chugging up the hill on an overburdened cycle, while a large silver husky was anxiously leaping up and down beside him. The young man was staring down at the passing ground directly in front of the cycle. The leaves and the grass were swimming behind a blurred film of tears. When he reached the crest of the hill, he hesitantly stopped and looked around into the hollow from which he had come. The bright and dark hues of the valley danced together in the tears that distorted his vision. Ardently he pressed the magnificent dog to his side and held him there for dear life with trembling hands. In a soft voice he whispered into his ear, “It’s not your fault, King. I’m so sorry. It’s all in me.” Then he released the dog, straightened up, and shouted across the valley at the top of his lungs, “It’s all in me!”
It was all in him as he wound through the forest to the highway, all the confusion and despair. What was driving him out of the heaven of his dreams into the world of his nightmares? Why was he leaving his mind back there to pursue his heart out here? What was forcing him to do that?
King followed him out to the highway and raced along behind him, falling farther and farther back until he collapsed into the ditch, overcome by exhaustion.