Enid was a bundle of confused emotions. As the bus rumbled down the road out of town, a greyhound of some type, she looked out the window and thought. Her memories drifted back to when she was a little girl, the many things she regretted, and the not so many things that she didn't regret. It's not that her childhood was horrible or anything. She had gotten plenty of attention in some way or another. If her parents hadn't given her any of their own volition, she got into some sort of antic to get their attention that way. Was that the brightest of ideas? Maybe not, but it seemed to be her only option at the time.

She lost track of time as the scenery lumbered on and changed before her very eyes. Though she stared out the window and saw the change from city to highway to open country back-road, she didn't process it. She didn't fully appreciate the scape around her, and was lost in her own thoughts until something snapped her out of her thoughts.

"Is this seat taken?" a voice said next to her. Enid jumped a little bit as she looked up from her window. After quickly realizing they must have picked up some more passengers at another stop, she looked to see that a man was standing in the aisle of the bus, indicating the empty seat next to her. For a brief moment, Enid envisioned her best friend sitting next to her there, but quickly banished those fantasies. She was happy back in town. She had everything they both had wanted when they were younger. She didn't belong here.

"No, go ahead," she finally said, a mere moment having passed since the stranger asked about the seat; no awkward pause, just a second where the stranger didn't seem to notice anything off. As he sat down, Enid was able to get a better look at him. He must have been a business man of some kind, since he wore a dark suit (whether it was black or very dark blue Enid could not quite tell), with a white button down shirt beneath the blazer, a teal blue necktie loose around his neck with the top button of his shirt undone. While it was not sweltering outside, it was somewhat warm, and a dark blazer like that was certainly out of place, but his tan over coat was even more strange. And yet he did not appear to be dirty or sweaty at all.

His cheeks and chin were peppered with stubble that couldn't be much older than a couple of days and could easily be explained by traveling and being on the road. His hair was black, and though it looked shampooed and clean, it was tousled as if he had been standing in the wind for some time. Though to his defense, that slightly messy order to his hair didn't look too bad on him.

When he looked at her, his eyes were a piercing blue: not too light, not too dark. Just perfect. But there was something else to them. A glow behind them that hinted at possibly something more. Enid put it down as just a trick of the sunlight that was still streaming in behind her from the window. He had a very light smile on his face as he looked at her. "What's your name?"

"Enid," she said simply, turning back to the window. She didn't really feel like saying much else, not even her last name. She was, after all, trying to get away from her ties to her past, and admitting that she had a last name was like admitting that there was something else back "home".

"A pleasure to meet you, Enid," the man continued. His voice, though deep and kind of gravelly, was oddly calming and soothing. "Where are you going?"

"I don't know." Why she continued to speak she wasn't sure, but she still kept her answers short and to the point.

"And why is that? Most people know their destination before boarding transport."

"I don't know. I guess I'm just not most people."

"I see." The stranger nodded his head in understanding. "You are wandering. You are unsure of where you are now in life much less where you are going. I've met many people like that."

"Have you?"

"Yes. Of course, it's been some time since I have, but still, I've come across many wanderers in my time."

"Well maybe you should talk to some of them and not to me." Now she was crossing something of a line as far as being rude, but she really didn't want to talk to anyone, especially a stranger that seemed far too chirpy for her tastes.

"Perhaps I could, but then I would not be able to speak with you."

"And why would you want to speak with me?"

"Because you are a wanderer. Wanderer's often either have tales of their own to tell, or they sometimes like to hear what another traveller has to say."

"And just what do you have to say?" Enid asked hotly, whirling around to face the blue eyed stranger.

"That if you get off in the next town, you won't have to wander any more."

"And how do you know that?"

"You could say that I have a very unique perspective on these things."

"Oh, is that so?! Well then what about the next town will help me stop wandering?"

"It's small and has a close knit community that will accept you. Rather than look on you as an oddity and call you names because of what choices you've made in the past, or because you have gone so long without choosing what you want to do with your life."

Enid was taken aback. She hadn't told anybody about her past, and yet this stranger seemed to know more about her than anyone else on the bus. "How... how do you know about all that?" she whispered.

"I told you. I have a very unique perspective."

Enid wasn't sure about this stranger. She turned and looked back out the window, thinking for a minute before she turned back to the stranger. "What are you?"

"Someone who cares," the man in the overcoat said softly. "Someone who will listen to you. So talk to me."

Enid stuttered for a minute before she finally turned back to the window, silent. Finally, she responded in a whisper. "I don't know who I am. I don't know what I'm supposed to be."

"You have questions," the nameless stranger mused quietly. "You know there is something out there that is more, but you are not sure what."

"Yeah," Enid muttered to the window, refusing to meet the stranger's eyes. "Something like that." A long pause followed. "I guess I just never really felt like an adult. When I graduated high school and went off for college, people just basically said, 'Welcome to adulthood. Now get a job, pay your taxes, get a boyfriend, get married, have a family, die rich. Have fun!' Ugh, if we had been told that this was what adulthood was like, I wouldn't have been in such a rush to grow up."

"You would be surprised how many people share that same sentiment," the man in the coat said. "What it means to be an adult has been a question for centuries. A wanderer I met many years ago once wrote in a letter, 'When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.' Of course, I do not mean to imply that men are the only ones that can come of age, but as a male himself, he wrote in the masculine tense to refer to his rise to adulthood."

"I can accept that. But what does it mean to become an adult?"

"A very good question. Some say it is merely a matter of one's physical age. Others say it is a matter of maturity. And yet others say that it is a combination of both, since maturity comes with age. A three year old child cannot have the maturity of a twenty year old, and therefore be called an adult."

"So what do you think it is?" Enid asked simply, looking once more to the stranger. It amazed her how much she had opened up conversationally; to a strange man in a trench coat, no less.

The stranger leaned his head back a little bit and adopted a look of thought. "I am not sure," he finally said. "Adulthood is a very tricky thing to define. For me especially: I did not have a traditional coming up. That being said, I think that it could be argued for your situation that you are, by this point, an adult. You have reached a point in age and maturity that separates you from children. But that's not to say you couldn't think less like a child and more like a woman."

"But what does a woman think about? Shoes and clothes and family? 'Cause I sure as heck ain't thinking about those sort of things."

"No, that's not necessarily all they think about. I believe that humans must forge their own destinies, and determine for themselves what it means to think like a man or a woman. And once they have come to that point where they believe they know what that means for themselves, then they have truly put childish ways behind them."

"And yet you say that I should get off at the next town so I no longer have to wander."

"I gave you an option. You have the choice to make yourself whether or not you do as I have suggested. Your ultimate destination is your choice, but you will find that rarely does life offer you such a clear cut choice. There are many days to come where you will be confused and uncertain of what to do. Here, someone is offering you an opportunity to no longer wander. It is a gamble, listening to the advice of a stranger, but you might find what you are looking for in the end." The bus began to slow down as he spoke. "Though your window is about to close. You must choose soon."

Enid looked out the window yet again, and saw a town that had been pulled from the set of The Andy Griffith Show it was so picturesque. The people walking along the streets were all smiling and waving at each other, and the lawns were all perfectly manicured, green, and lush. Three times she saw people sitting on their porches, drinking iced tea or cola. It was so pretty that Enid almost didn't believe that she was really seeing what was in front of her. All things considered, Enid decided that it certainly didn't look like a bad place to maybe settle down in; but that didn't mean that she would.

"Will you take the gamble, or will you continue to wander?" the stranger asked, his voice snapping her out of her silent musings. "You must decide."

As the bus slowed to a stop, Enid, looked between the town through the window, and the stranger sitting next to her. She didn't know what ultimately caused her to do so, but she shot to her feet, grabbed her purse, and hurried out the bus door before it had the chance to rumble onwards. As she stepped onto the pavement of the small town, she closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. For the first time in so long, Enid felt free, and at peace. Here, nobody knew her. Here, they wouldn't have any preconceived notions about her. Here, she could really make something of herself. As the bus started up again, Enid turned to watch it go. She would never know what would have happened had she stayed, but she didn't really care. As the window where she sat came into view, she saw the stranger in the overcoat sitting in her old seat, a smile on his face as he gave a gentle wave to her.

Enid waved back at the impromptu friend she had made on a trip she hadn't even planned in the first place, but as the bus rumbled onwards, a faint whisper escaped her lips. "I never got his name." She turned to walk over to the bus station's information center when she heard something. It was faint, and she almost didn't hear it, but it sounded almost like that stranger. It was one word; one name really.

"Jophiel," was all she heard in that voice. But then, almost like thunder, she heard a loud "whoosh", like the mighty flapping of large wings. She turned to look at the bus, but saw nothing except the dust left in the air by the tires. Confused, and full of even more questions, Enid finally set the matter aside, turned to her new town, and set off on her first step to finally, truly, become a woman.