Snow falling down, endlessly, relentlessly, those cold, grim, heartless, stabbing flakes of gossamer ice, spreading their melancholy net out for miles across the heartland; and the cold winds rattling through some forgotten hamlet in a remote corner of the Dakotas (or was it Iowa? Nebraska? Wyoming? ) - a tree deprived flatland of sorts with a town plopped down upon desolate earth - a town with one main road, one ramshackle gas station, a tiny post office (now closed for renovations) a nondescript general store - a Bunny's Burger joint (also closed because of inclement weather at lunch time, no less!) - business in these parts having been bad or non-existent for years - except for the constant stream of big-rigs - with drivers typically continuing on to the Regal Truck Oasis in Kindred Village 20 miles further down highway 94. Our protagonist (D.S.) - for some reason always kept in basement settings or some secret loft spaces that cheap hotels were sometimes known to boast of - consuming corn flakes and watching reruns on old-timey tv sets, accompanied by his intrepid handlers - part-time detectives outsourced from the F.B.I - who at this point in time must have been figuring that this type of work assignment amounted to some kind of serious demotion... Waking up on this particular day was indeed troubled for the aforementioned Damien - in part because his dream of the night before corresponded quite precisely with the view outside of the loft space hotel room - and his fear - quite justified - was that a new home was to be found for him - in this locale - which to put it mildly did not represent his first choice of venues.
