He hadn't thought about the Kansas City skyline in years. He remembered a picture he kept on his desk wall, taken late in the afternoon, the late day sun shining off the glass buildings, the moon just rising behind a new skyscraper. He remembered looking at the picture, a wistful look in his eyes, wondering just when he'd be able to go there again.

By all rights, it wasn't the prettiest city he'd ever been too, not with the stockyards within city limits, nor the bland suburbia that surrounded it. He'd seen other cities with far more interesting architecture, cities with ocean views, towering skyscrapers that seemed to touch the clouds. So what was it then, that held his interest and captured his dreams? Was it the beckoning plains that rolled on forever, just outside the limits of the housing developments, an apartment complex set on one the few hills on the edge of town, one that had a view that stretch until the ground met the sky in a distant straight greenish brown line? Or was it that it was someplace completely different that where had been living, stuck in a large city on the east coast, a commute that took up a 5th of his waking hours, and a view that only went as far as the next row of trees?

Looking back to his past, almost 10 years now he realized, he tried to place the exact thing that held him so to that city. He paused his work for a moment to look out his window, at the view that stretched as far as the sky would allow. At distant mountains, at the subtly rolling plains that his own house was built upon. The spring breeze, coming softly though the open windows was fresh, the smell of new plants starting to grow, of snow melting, of the world reawakening after a cold winter. Could he place the exact thing that made that dream for him? Probably not, by now, he thought. But he knew. Knew the very core of that dream that held him back then, still held him now. Deep in him, in that part of him that held his own inner reflection, he knew what had brought him to the base of the mountains, on the edge of the plains, and his eyes took on a faraway look, one that took in the entire landscape at once. The vast sky, domed over him in fathom-less depths of blue, the mountains, laid out in front of him as if for him to touch, venture forth and explore.

He bade her farewell as she climbed the stairs into the waiting airplane, heading to that city that had once called him with such clarity. He kissed her, telling her to give a moment of thought, a salute of sorts, to that city which had held his dreams, ultimately bringing him to be with her. No longer the place which held his dreams, for it had become an item in his past, one that he had dreamed of, gained, and then placed in memory, to be looked at fondly, if only occasionally. It was right, he decided, that the once elusive and unobtainable city become a memory, for he had surpassed it, gained what he had been looking for, and again, had set his sights on other places, some elusive, some unobtainable, for those kept him dreaming.