FLASH FICTION WITH A BEAT
acceleration
…
They’ve been lost for some time before one of them chances voicing the obvious and then only indirectly.
How long’ve we been driving for?
They’re on a low-light off the beaten track. Loud enough music drowns out a dishonest silence. The early evening stars pop and whizz over their heads without a sound.
Singing prevents close up conversation, but she only does it almost under her breath. Audibly enough to prevent interruption. Quietly enough to avoid judgement or rejection.
Her window is rolled down and the wind whips her hair around her face, making it even harder to see. She leaves it wide open despite or because of this.
His window is closed up tight against the darkness of the night.
The dim road is not quite tarred. Still too barely used for it to be intentionally made into any kind of straight and narrow to get anywhere productively.
Instead, they curve and wind through young, rolling hills of no noticeable distinction to relate to any point or position.
The further they get from the tacitly agreed on wrong turn, the more alive with possibility she becomes.
He’s becoming ever more edgy and nervous.
It’s been almost an hour now with nothing in sight, other than the same unending peaks and troughs.
Nothing more visible than countless stars expanding as the dark descends fully, making the horizon even more impossible to reach.
Only a clear as day fact in the outta city light, that this isn’t the road they meant to choose.
She never did care as much as he about the final destination and this was a large part of the situation.
It’s easier to get lost.
But sometimes plans don’t work out regardless of best intentions and more often because of the worst of them.
She always believes they’ll get there eventually.
She thinks this again, silently, as he thinks out loud of going back to find the Right Way. Not even any sign of tar now. Just a gravel road.
A rough road.
Spontaneously is her favourite way to travel. It’s prone to new experiences and randomly like-magic moments that make it all worthwhile.
But it’s also prone to mistakes and losing good time.
They’ve found this single lane
of almost forgotten hardly discovered not even on the map
by accident.
She’s never believed in accidents.
Or destiny either.
This road abandoned.
Private enough for a break of some kind without threat of consequence, in the almost now near midnight.
She looks up as she squats under the milky way and empties her bladder, gazing unblinking at the haze of infinity above her.
Feeling ever more wildness and relief. Carefree wonder.
They get back into the car.
A phone is procured and messages are sent to find correct co-ordinates for an alternative route.
His fear abates with the decisive action, and hers even more with the decisive abandoning of decision and responsibility.
She doesn’t even ask. Just waits for his direction.
They continue on their way with the music turned off now, moving into comfortable silence.
She refuses to give up the wheel when he offers to take it, even though the three hour trip has unexpectedly been extended to five going on six.
Dirty windscreen, dusty path. It’s hard to keep eyes on where the road even is, in the smeared darkness.
She isn’t at all tired.
As the constraints of signs and lanes dissolve into easy onward momentum, she’s waking up again. Remembering.
They approach a moonlit rise in the road.
The force of the upward climb is pushing her back into her seat but she leans forward into the pressure instead, as if she believes her body weight will help propel the car over the top with more ease.
Anticipation.
There’s no seeing what’s over the other side of the rise, and the uncertainty mounts with their ascent.
She doesn’t slow down.
She tightens her grip on the wheel, hesitates for a moment brief enough to not consider it further as they reach the crescent
and accelerates
At the same time
he instinctively reaches both hands out in front of him to brace himself against the dashboard.
They shoot over the summit, sliding gracefully downwards and smooth flat out the other side.
A moment of stillness inside the moving car.
The shadowed purple landscape outside their vacuum continues to rush past without a sound.
He glances sideways at her, then looks out the passenger window without saying a word.
A moment of discomfort discarded. A barely conscious agreement of the exchange of connection for growing towards permanent distance
and self imposed isolation.
This is what makes the moment uncomfortable. It’s conscious but the reasoning is not.
Instead the experience hangs in the air, echoing the unspeakable for a another long minute. Or is it two?
The value of time isn’t fixed or permanent in the way we believe it is.
Or even agreed on.
They lived their part life like that. Him prepared for worse case scenario. Her challenging worse case scenario to fuckin’ bring it.
You might think it would balance out a relationship.
You can try do this with words, but words are rarely honest enough to reveal some kind of mutual truth.
Maybe truth is in the silences alone.
The truth was, their differences were always the same thing just played out in too different ways.
The truth is nobody is ever right in these types of situations, and worse case scenario can always be far worse than expected.
Reply to a comment on this story:
I was talking about overcoming the fear of death in this piece, and in doing so finding true ”liberation”.
And the fact that we are all motivated by this same fear just playing out differently.
THIS is why it resonated with you ❤
I did this work personally by “sitting” and learning to see it all. As it is. But you know that already :)
Joy’s article on meditation I refer to having just read:
Thanks for your reading time
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