Kathryn Clarice is an 18-year-old young woman who has just moved from Ocean City, Maryland to the good ol’ city of Boston, Massachusetts. Why? Well, for her college internship at the F&E Oil Company.
Dmitri is an interesting man. According to those around him, he has no past, no last name, and nowhere to go. He is a mystery. Therefore, people don’t like him. The ominous bubble that seems to surround him like a gloomy black hole of doom is never ending. He has no friends. You’d think his thick Irish accent would cause intrigue… instead people would just scoff and walk away. A homeless, hitchhiking, couch-hopping traveler is all they saw, but one person stood out and chose compassion.
Dmitri was on his normal travels between Ohio and Nebraska (his home state) so that he could visit some of his friends. Each night he’d stay on someone new’s couch and use money from his small job to pay for the hospitality. On his average trip, he happened to have hitchhiked with the wrong person… they got lost. This older fellow was insisted on using an old map, and Dmitri wasn’t prepared to argue. Apparently this map was upward of 50 years old and hadn’t been checked since. Needless to say, Dmitri helped the man get back on track and decided to stay where he was for a bit (after finding out he’s in Boston). With him often traveling similar routes, Dmitri is used to navigating new city spaces and finds a hotel quite quickly. He checked in, spent the night, had some brunch, and left. He was on his way to now find a taxi and get himself a few miles out of the city, but in his rush, and the natural rush of the city, he ran into a woman carrying an inexplicable amount of boxes.
“Oh jeez, I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it… I should’ve ask my friends for help.”
“Here, I can help.”
Dmitri helps the woman collect her things and get them to her new apartment building.
“Thank you…”
“Dmitri… my name is Dmitri.”
He reaches out to shake her hand like a proper introduction. She responds with, “Well thank you, Dmitri, my name is Kathryn.”
She shows her gratitude further by offering that he join her for some dinner and they decide on Thai. While enjoying their meal, they get chatting and finally someone chooses to get to know Dmitri, instead of simply judging him at face value. She learns that he is actually from a town outside of Ireland, but his family grew up in deep Dublin. After they moved to America he had trouble making friends, and graduated with only two. She then discovers that he is in fact on his way to visit one of those friends in Nebraska and she happens to be going there for a visit with a possible buyer into the F&E Oil Company as a part of her internship. She offers to take him on her trip, and they enjoy the car ride together. As they reach their destination, Dmitri is ready to hop and go on his way as normal when Kathryn stops him. She gives him her number and they go their separate ways.
A few days later they met up again for their trip back that they talked about over the phone. Kathryn meets Dmitri at his friend’s house and she is invited in for some lunch before take-off in which they had sandwiches and drinks. Little did Dmitri know, Kathryn was allergic to Kiwi. As he offered her a tropical drink, she accidentally got a kiwi-lime and went into anaphylactic shock. She was rushed to the ER and they attempted to bring her symptoms back down. Dmitri waited a few hours until the doctor came out to inform him that she had passed.
Dmitri left the hospital, and left his phone behind. He walked for a long time. And no one is sure where he went.
