The road stretched before me like a languid snake: slithery and treacherous. Damien’s thoughts clicked and chattered even though his body was rigid like a block of grey rock. His profile looked like it was carved of marble. The sun had passed its zenith and wrapped a golden hue around his face. His features were now in perfect harmony, giving him the appearance of serenity he didn’t really have. It always amazed me how a person could look so different depending on the angle and lighting. Or perhaps it was our inner world that was painting a different picture to the outside.
He hadn’t said a word for the past twenty miles. It didn’t matter. I had already made up my mind. I had a plan. There was only one last thing to wrap up before I could cut this last tie to my past. “Have you submitted anything yet?” I asked. Damien’s lids flickered and he suddenly leaned forward, adjusting the cool air coming out from the center console. “Not yet. I haven’t really seen anything yet. It wasn’t even worth starting the article yet.”
“You sure about that?” I repressed a chuckle. It didn’t surprise me that he was waiting for the ‘real experience’ to begin, before considering putting pen to paper. Damien was a serious writer. He didn’t dabble in ‘philosophical stratospheres of nothingness’ as he once described my writing to a colleague. He didn’t know that I had overheard him, and I never let on that I knew. Why the office had thought it a good idea to send us on a trip together and put us on the same article is anyone’s guess. We couldn’t be more different, as people and as writers.
“You know we could have written a piece about a journey north told from the female and male perspective or something like that.” I grinned. Damien made a grimace. I think he was trying to smile. Goodness he was not a cheerful dude, was he? I suppressed a chuckle.
“Have you submitted anything yet?” Damien asked. I shook my head. “I’m going to go in a new direction. You can have the article, and the credits.” He shot me a curious look. “You might get the boot for that, you know that right? Jason is already looking for reasons to fire you.” I shrugged. “I know, and I don’t care. The way I see it, I’m going to write this piece and it’s going to be either so great that he can’t say no to giving me my own column, or I will get fired. At least then I’ll have the freedom to find a job more suitable to my talents.”
Damien scanned my face searching for last remnants of reason. He scoffed. Apparently he had found none. Good, I thought, and grinned. I slowed down. The olive tree we had passed on our way was to our right. It looked windswept and weary. The gravel road was coming up to our left. I turned where a few hours earlier the wimpy guy with his Winchester had stood, shooting at us.
I pulled to the side of the road and killed the engine. I gathered my things. It wasn’t much. My backpack, a jacket, my phone, sunglasses, and another pair of shoes: sneakers. I was still wearing my sandals. I considered changing, but then decided against it.
Damien watched me with a consternated expression. “What are you doing?” I got out of the car and slammed the door shut. He followed me, grabbed my arm and held me close to him. His eyes were shining like two shiny pennies in the sun. Was he going to slap me or kiss me, or hug me? I didn’t know. All of these options were…well, an option. Damien always liked to pretend he was such a man, and that showing or even just having emotions would make him less of one. Nothing could be further from the truth, but he wouldn’t hear any of that. His emotions however, ran deep, but he refused to let anyone close enough. I had stopped caring a long time ago.
There had been a time, when we first met. Five years ago, when I had first started working at the paper, and he was my mentor, the senior writer assigned to show me the ropes, when I had found him interesting, attractive even. But that was a long time ago. That was before I had figured out that he was a closed book, and that his worldview was that of his grandfather, unchanging and forever stuck in the past season.
I glared up at him combatively, but I felt playful. What was he going to do? Anything extreme would betray emotion, and he couldn’t admit to having any. He was stuck in his own mind’s prison. My face must have betrayed the mischievous mirth I felt, because he let go of me and stared into the distance so suddenly, that I felt the cool breeze brush over my exposed arms.
“You can have the car. Here-“I threw the keys into the air. He glared at me stupefied, and caught them, bending at the knees just before the slipped from his grasp. “I’m going to eat there-“I motioned to the pillar of smoke pilling up into the sky at a distance. The food truck was still there, the guy was staring at us, his Winchester leaning against the wall of the cart. His hand was twitching, ready to grasp it at any moment. What was he guarding? I knew a good riddle, a good puzzle when I saw one. Too bad Damien didn’t have my instincts. He was missing out on a great story. My boss didn’t like my adventure stories either. They weren’t ‘political’ enough or not socially ‘relevant’ enough, or whatever else he could think of.
I thought my stories were original and different. Plenty of writers covered the ordinary already. Why couldn’t he have one staff writer who covered the extraordinary? This was my chance. I had to leave now, or I would never do it. “Alright, Damien, good luck with the story. I’m leaving it all to you. If you don’t hear from me, it means I’m dead, or someone else hired me.” I laughed. My voice was dry and soft. But I felt great. Damien just stood there, shell-shocked and watched me walk down the gravel road. I didn’t turn back. I had got up to my toes and gave him a peck on the cheek. I could feel his eyes on me. I could sense his emotions roaring behind his still façade.
He also had a decision to make. He could ever stay buried forever behind the façade of stone he had built, or he could break out of that self-imposed prison before it was too late and the walls too high for his soul to scale.
The dust swirled under my step. Crickets chirped somewhere next to me in the sparse vegetation. A clump of cacti stood to my right. A lonely hawk sailed in wide circles above me. The sky was blue, not a single cloud to be seen. It was warm, a cool breeze played with the hair on the back of my head. I felt good. My spider senses were alert, fully awake; my spirit was searching the depth of what was before me.
There was mystery, intrigue, there was danger. But, as usual, I felt unstoppable, unbeatable, and incorrigibly determined to give way to my thirst for life, and fight with equal vigor against the fear that was on the other side of that mental seesaw.
I wasn’t going to give in, no that would mean defeat and I was undefeated. If there was anything I could hold a claim to it was that. I tilted my head back and stared into the blue sky until my vision was entirely absorbed by the blue. Blue was all there was. Blue, vast and endless, blue, cerulean blue, clear, depthless blue. I smiled and ordered one hamburger and slapped a ten dollar bill on the counter. The wispy guy gave me a crooked, toothless smile before he reached for his Winchester.
