On how children make despair look stupid.

I’m driving the interstate into Ogden, April, 2003. Forty years ago my Grandpa Duncan, an itinerant cowboy, died alone in this town. What would he think of the sci-fi convention it’s become today? American flags fly from every car antenna, and four flags (two front, two back) fly from most of the pickups. A Dodge Ram tailgates me a while, then blasts by doing ninety, its quadruple Old Glories raggling so fiercely they’ll be shreds in a week.

“More’n one way to desecrate a flag,” I can’t help but mutter.

When I reach my hotel I head straight for the bar — to find it’s alcohol-free. Joseph Smith, you dog! Three wall-mounted televisions blare Fox News portrayals of “us” mowing down “them” while the Coke-sipping patrons cheer as if it’s football. The word Iraqi, I notice, is now invariably pronounced the way my cracker forebears pronounced Eye-talian.

My wife is Eye-talian. My father is dying in a distant city the same way his father died here. I want to hold her. I want to see him. But I’ve come to earn a living. For the next two days my job is to represent contemporary Western American literature to the children of all the flag ragglers — kids the same age as those working the joysticks and screens that spray the blood in this war. I can think of some contemporary lit I wouldn’t mind sharing. Jim Harrison: Late in life I’ve lost my country. Everywhere...the malice of unearned power...

I trudge back to the lobby and check in. My room’s on the seventh floor. The elevator’s doors are triumphant Mormon gold. A sad-looking contemporary Western American stands reflected in them. When I press the call button I recall a dry but inarguable little prayer: God and karma have placed me in this situation. I then wait so long for the elevator that I give up, embrace my karma, and lug my suitcase and heavy bookbag up the seven flights of stairs.

The room is generic, but for an indigenous Book of Mormon.

I cover the TV with the extra blanket from the closet.

I try the indigenous book. More sci-fi.

I shut off the light and try to aim solace at Eye-raqi children, my dying dad, my lonesome grandpa. I’d pray for our troops too, but Ogden seems to have that covered.

I sleep poorly when I sleep at all.

The one dream I remember is of boys with sticks killing banty chickens as they cower in the corner of a pen.

I wake to news of “our” Iraq “victory” blasting through the walls from TVs on two sides. For the thousandth time I hear the president’s gloating drawl. For the thousandth time I feel sick.

I brew the dismal little pot of prepackaged coffee and look out the window. Flags again raggle from every truck and car.

I shower, then dress, then gather my teaching paraphernalia and set out for a long day, feeling exhausted before I’ve begun. Because I’m toting a stack of books and a briefcase I pass up the stairs and attempt the elevator. The call button again reminds me: God and karma have placed me in this situation. The wait once more is interminable. The contemporary Western American in the reflection again looks sad.

At last the dinger dings, the DOWN light ignites, the golden doors sigh — and some kind of dharma field opens: ten radiant-faced eight-year-old girls stand before me in matching but varicolored dance costumes. The costumes feature leotards, polyester satin vests, a lot of pastel chiffon, and scuffed-up little athletic shoes to save the pristine ballet slippers they each hold in their hands. Their gaze is a twentyfold beam of light. My astonishment apparently shows: all ten take one look at me and burst into laughter. “All aboard!” a robin-egg-blue one calls.

I want to, but the elevator looks full.

Seeing me hesitate, the girls squeeze so eagerly together they create room for six or seven of me. Feeling honored, I step aboard. But as soon as I’m on board, four girls turn away from me and face the back wall of the elevator.

Noticing my confusion, a spring-green-costumed girl smiles and says, “We’re Amish,” to which a pale-orange girl with missing teeth adds, “Here for the Danth Conventhin!”

“So don’t worry,” Spring-green continues as the doors slowly close. “They aren’t facing away from you. That’d be mean. They’re facing away from the door. That’s how we show the elevator we shun it.”

The shunners glance back over their shoulders to see how I take this. I nod curtly, adopt a grave expression — and turn away from the golden doors myself.

They again explode into laughter, except for one straight-faced girl in purple, who is tapping on my sleeve. I look down at her. “Yes?”

“We shun purple too,” says Purple, inspiring another burst of laughter, including mine.

The elevator starts down. I’m so grateful for its slowness.

“We got to get up at four-thirty this morning!” an apricot-colored girl ­enthuses, “because Jedediah had to milk the cows at five,” adds Purple, “because we’re Amish,” repeats Spring-green, “and Amish girls cook for Amish boys,” explains Robin-egg blue.

“If I become Amish would you cook a little somethin’ for me?” I ask. Ten girls roll their eyes and titter at the very idea of me becoming Amish.

“Come on!” I protest. “I love those broad-brim hats. And those horse-drawn buggies. Ich spreche Deutsch, too, a little. I’ll bet you girls can really cook!”

More rolled eyes and wild titters.

“I’ll bet you can really dance, too.”

This at least gets a few eager nods.

Ding! says the elevator, and stops.

1, says the light on the panel.

The shunners and I turn now, facing forward. In golden reflection, all eleven of us smile at each other as we await the glacially slow doors, the long hall and lobby beyond them, and the flags, malice, unearned power, Dance Convention, and students of contemporary Western American literature beyond that. I draw the deepest possible breath of what lives and thrives in this elevator. The doors then open — and pent delight pours out in a wave that, regardless of how our world may receive it, strikes me as reason enough for this or any world to exist.

I duck out and step aside so the girls can chase the delight on down the hall.

No such chase occurs. Instead, Spring-green stops squarely in front of me, peers up into my eyes, and with simple sincerity says, “Thank you for riding the elevator with us.”

Stunned by this graciousness, I bow.

Next Purple stops before me. “Thanks a lot!” she says emphatically.

When I turn my back to shun her purpleness, the girls burst into laughter. When I turn back, and bow, she grins and bows in return.

Next a pale pink one, too shy to speak, curtsies. I bow. A pale red one extends a tiny hand to shake my huge one. I bow. Then Pale Orange pipes, “Thanths!”, and Robin-egg says, “We’ll cook if you’ll milk!”, and Apricot does a 360-degree twirl, arching so far back she’s able to beam at me all the way around, and I bow and I bow and they thank and they thank until each, in her way, has rewarded the stranger for sharing a twenty second ride in an elevator they shun.

Only then do they flush, like a covey of Kleenex-colored quail, and fly down the hall.

Because gratitude’s tears look little different than sorrow’s, it’s a while before I follow. When I reach the lobby they’re gone, but every face in their wake remains lit by their passing, and my own happiness has dug in so deep I feel it aching in my chest.

I step out into sunlight and soon-to-be-tattered flags. Clouds and birds are also flying.

In an elevator, in Utah, I rediscovered my lost country.

David James Duncan, who received an honorary doctorate from the University in 2004 for the power and prayer of his work, is the author most recently of God Laughs & Plays, which is absolutely riveting, trust us.