When I left Indianapolis, I didn’t storm out or make a scene—I simply vanished. No dramatic goodbyes, no explanations. I gave my landlord no forwarding address, turned in my notice at work with quiet finality, and slipped out of my old life like a jacket that no longer fit. The only person who knew where I was going was my sister, Carly—and even she thought I’d gone off the deep end.
“A cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains?” she asked, half-laughing, half-worried. “Jay, you hate bugs. You cried when your spider plant died.”
She had a point. But when your life starts to feel like a faded photograph of someone you barely recognize, you’ll do anything to remember who you were. So I packed up my old 2005 Tacoma with a few tools, a stack of canned goods, a water purifier, and whatever scraps of my old self I could still carry. The cabin had belonged to my grandfather—a man more myth than memory to me, remembered only through grainy photos and stories no one told anymore. After he died, the place sat untouched. Forgotten. Until I ran out of better ideas.
At first, the silence was louder than any city noise.
No traffic. No texts. Just the rustle of trees, the low call of an owl, and the groan of the old cabin settling beneath me. I chopped wood until my hands blistered, learned three different ways to make beans bearable, and read by headlamp until I forgot the names of the days. I was finally alone. Blessedly, beautifully alone.
Then came the donkey.
It was a Thursday—at least, I think it was. I’d been trying to stick to a “chop wood every three days” schedule, and the math got a little fuzzy. I was sitting on the porch, nursing a tin mug of instant coffee, watching the morning fog wrap the trees like a shawl. That’s when I saw it—something moving on the ridge. Brown. Low to the ground. Four legs.
And headed straight for me.