THE NARRATIVE ARC

Notes From an Apocalyptic Road Trip

Being responsible is for suckers

christina hughes babb
The Narrative Arc
Published in
6 min readMay 26, 2024

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Woman holding a red smoke flare stands beside an off-road vehicle on a grassy hill against a mountain backdrop at sunset
Anastasia Shuraeva for Pexels.

The turnip-faced man outside the Love’s Travel Stop licked his lips and watched me walk, beady eyes tracking me as I buckled in, don’t make eye contact, shifted to R, don’t make eye contact, pressed the gas and cranked up the stereo.

“When angels deserve to diiiieeee,” System of a Down wailed.

It would have been a decisive exit, one that insisted, “You can’t ruffle my feathers, Dude.” If only that mechanic back in Dallas had not totally screwed me over.

Instead of laying rubber, my vehicle accelerated like an injured wildebeest. In fits and spurts I clambered past perceived predator and his sinister smile.

In pigheaded denial about what was happening, I returned to the road. Then I was on the shoulder of Interstate 40 doing 20 miles per hour, two-ton trucks barreling past, rattling my teeth. As I crept toward Exit 142, returned to the truck stop, my predicament sunk in. I would not be arriving in a few hours, as planned, at a short-term writing residency on a Knoxville sheep farm.

I was run aground in Bucksnort, Tennessee.

This residency thing was new to me. But Sundress Academy for the Arts at Firefly Farms seemed like my…

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christina hughes babb
The Narrative Arc

Based on Actual Events: Award-winning journalist and essayist.