On the Road

Her eyelids open to the glorious onslaught of untamed light reflecting off the shards of the window's shattered glass. She throws off the dilapidated blanket, shivering in the brisk morning air, squinting at her surroundings--the battered coffee table, the stained rug and peeling walls, the long-forgotten prismatic fragments. The previous owners didn't even bother taping up some cheap plastic sheeting over the gaping hole. No matter, this was just as good a one-night dwelling as any. Nevermind it didn't exactly feel like home--she didn't really know what she called home anymore, anyway.

Too much thinking, she tells herself. She slides on her red sneakers and glances at her reflection in the dirt-caked mirror left on top the dresser, pulling her long hair back behind her neck with a harsh tug. She strides to the empty window frame without a glance back, leans against the marred steel and looks out at the field of dried grass and weeds eating away at the lonely road. This quaint place, now so utterly abandoned, she thinks, but stops herself. Just another place, can't get sentimental about it. So many places in the world.

She steps onto the windowsill and stares at the ground, judging the height. Nothing she hasn't done before. She gathers the unruly folds of her sundress in one hand, puts the other out for balance, and steps off the edge. The drop is short and she makes a perfect landing, pausing only to brush the stray foxtail off her shoe. Once again she is in motion, walking with a purpose.

She treks through the knee-length grass, edges tickling the bare skin of her legs as the wind tosses her mane free from its messy knot and the sun heats her uncovered shoulders. She turns the corner and heads toward the road. Her beat-up Mustang waits for her in the ditch like a faithful dog. She pulls her wad of keys out of the hem of her dress--what good would a dress be without pockets?--and looks at them in mild contemplation. Yes, she decides, slipping all but one off the keyring and letting them fall into the dead earth as if letting pieces of herself fall away.

She settles herself in the driver's seat, revs up the engine and pulls onto the road while fumbling around for the sunglasses she knows are somewhere in the mess of junk on the passenger seat. No longer squinting from the light of the sun, she opens a bag of chips for breakfast and turns the radio up loud enough so that she drowns out her singing voice as well as her own thoughts. She braces herself. There is a long day of driving ahead. She better start it now.