I sit on my porch with a beer, watching Danny in the vacant lot next door. He's working on something — pieces of scrap metal, old canvas, wire. It looks like garbage. It has looked like garbage for three months. But he works on it like it matters. Like if he just gets the wire right, if he just bends this piece of metal the right way, it will all come together and become something that flies.

I ask him what he's building. He says a plane. I say nothing. I've learned that saying nothing is the best thing you can do.

Danny is sixteen. He's smart, but smart doesn't mean anything in a neighborhood where the factories closed and the jobs left and the sky is always gray. He's directionless, which is the polite way of saying he has no idea what he's going to do with his life, which is the honest way of saying he has no idea what any of us are going to do with our lives.

His mother comes out of their house screaming. She wants him to go to the city — the store, the pharmacy, something. He refuses. They argue the same way they always argue. She wins, eventually. He grabs a list and slams the door. I watch him walk to his bike. I don't offer to drive him. I don't call out. I just sit on the porch and finish my beer.

Two days later, Danny shows up at my door. He's not alone. Sarah is with him. She looks like she hasn't slept in a week. Her eyes are tired, the way a person's eyes look when they are carrying something heavy that they cannot put down. She tells me, in a flat voice, that her mother has arranged for her to be sent to a training center in Indiana. She doesn't want to go. Danny says he's going to help her get north. Chicago to Indiana is not far. But it feels far. I look at Sarah. I look at Danny. I say nothing.

They leave at dawn. Danny on his bike. Sarah walking. Mr. Petrov gives Danny a toolbox — "in case you need to fix something," he says. Danny nods. I'm on the porch. I light a cigarette. I watch them disappear down the street. I don't wave. I don't say goodbye. I smoke and I think about nothing.

Danny comes back two days later. Alone. His clothes are torn. His face has a cut on his cheek that's starting to scab. His bike is broken. The plane is gone — he doesn't explain. I ask if he made it. He says no. I ask about Sarah. He looks at me for a long time. Then he shakes his head. I nod. I go back to my beer.

I hear later that Sarah was sent to Indiana. Danny doesn't talk anymore. He sits in his room all day. His mother leaves food outside his door. I sit on my porch. I smoke. The Chicago sky is gray. It's always gray. Nothing changes. Nothing ever changes.

I think about Danny's plane sometimes. I think about what it was made of — scrap metal, old canvas, wire. I think about how it looked like garbage. I think about how he worked on it like it mattered. I think about how it didn't matter. I think about Sarah, in Indiana, in a training center, in a room with gray walls and a gray sky, and I think about how nothing changes.

I think about Mr. Petrov giving Danny the toolbox. I think about why he gave it to him. Did he know? Did he know it wouldn't matter? Did he give it to Danny because he wanted Danny to have something to fix, even though nothing can be fixed in a world like this?

I finish my beer. I go inside. I sit in my kitchen. I look out the window at the gray sky. I think about nothing.

OTMES-v2-4B8D2F-072-M1-180-9R0000-2A5C Objective Tensor Codes: M=[6.5,0.5,1.0,2.0,2.0,2.0,1.0,0.0,1.0,1.5] N=[0.25,0.75] K=[0.80,0.20] Angle: 180 deg | Irreversibility: 0.8 | TI: 28.5 (T5 Suffering) | E_total: 8.9