upon the letter’s final instruction.
Keep going until you get hungry .
Besides, it was apparently true that I hadn’t eaten in more than four months. And these certainly were not normal conditions. However inappropriate it seemed in my mind, I was already digging into my pocket for that half-empty M&Ms wrapper.
***
Carbon Canyon Road, at this time of night, turned out to be a treacherously abysmal obstacle course, a twisting and turning labyrinth of formless black wilderness. Every so often, I would spy a lonely street light or two illuminating a cluster of quieted homes or stables. I assumed the canyon had fallen victim to a power outage until I noticed there were no street lights anyway.
Towering dark formations in the distance before me soon became walls of rock revealed by my Mustang’s high beams. A mountainous borderland lay ahead, floating upon the distending vista like a deluge of lofty apparitions, rising with every moment of my approach from the depths of a thick, Stygian pool of nightfall. It was a disclosure both menacing and beautiful, surrounding me fully much sooner than I’d expected. Within the next moment, the road diverted abruptly to the right, my lights pivoting in rapid secession from the sloping hillside walls. Steering viciously to retain my course, I navigated the bend only to be pitted against an ambush of bright light.
An onrush of three or four vehicles swept into the opposing lane, passing me and plunging into the darkness from which I came, a welcoming committee of sorts to the challenging thruway I had just entered. Nearly every sharp curve promised a showdown of more oncoming headlights, splashing into my view without notice, my eyes dripping with blindness as they billowed past. Their sporadic stampede and the narrowness of the road together gave me the illusion they were racing directly into me. The urge to swerve off in panic was a deadly instinct held into check by my frozen grip upon the wheel.
I wondered if the hands of fate ever did drugs. As I endured this portion of my journey, I began to draw the conclusion that the fate folks upstairs were wide and flying and flicking cigarette butts at a television screen displaying my feverish image. They had only to depress the button which would make my illusion real, thwarting my newfound realities into a speeding semi and tomorrow’s six o’clock news.
No sooner had I begun to pray for relief when the gorge yawned into open terrain once again. Even better, I saw that I had emerged into a more populated area. Intersections branched outwards, both to my left and right, leading through scattered residences bathed in yellow lamplight. Somehow, I felt overwhelmingly redeemed.
Until, within the next few minutes, I felt lost.
Where was I to go? I was still hungry, of course, but was I expected to simply follow my empty stomach? Follow it like that damn animated toucan follows his nose to the flavors of fruit in that cereal commercial?
If I was, it wouldn’t surprise me.
I had a good mind to pull over and park at the roadside, and wait for the unknown to come to me . With my luck, what actually would come to me would be a cop. And what would I say to him?
I dug into my pocket for more M&Ms.
There were only three left.
And they were already melting in my hands.
***
The countryside view I had wished for only lasted a mile and a half, and my precious street lights decreased in number with the concluding remnants of community farmland. The road curved at an incline as my headlights reflected back from steel guardrails perched upon fat wooden pegs rising from the embankment, directing me around a sloping grassy hillside.
I slowed to a crawl. I clicked down my high beams finally, preparing in advance for a second stampede of heavy traffic, my nerves preparing for another envelopment of rocky walls.
I didn’t prepare for what came instead, as the foothills parted and the road gave way to the approaching vision to my
Keep going until you get hungry .
Besides, it was apparently true that I hadn’t eaten in more than four months. And these certainly were not normal conditions. However inappropriate it seemed in my mind, I was already digging into my pocket for that half-empty M&Ms wrapper.
***
Carbon Canyon Road, at this time of night, turned out to be a treacherously abysmal obstacle course, a twisting and turning labyrinth of formless black wilderness. Every so often, I would spy a lonely street light or two illuminating a cluster of quieted homes or stables. I assumed the canyon had fallen victim to a power outage until I noticed there were no street lights anyway.
Towering dark formations in the distance before me soon became walls of rock revealed by my Mustang’s high beams. A mountainous borderland lay ahead, floating upon the distending vista like a deluge of lofty apparitions, rising with every moment of my approach from the depths of a thick, Stygian pool of nightfall. It was a disclosure both menacing and beautiful, surrounding me fully much sooner than I’d expected. Within the next moment, the road diverted abruptly to the right, my lights pivoting in rapid secession from the sloping hillside walls. Steering viciously to retain my course, I navigated the bend only to be pitted against an ambush of bright light.
An onrush of three or four vehicles swept into the opposing lane, passing me and plunging into the darkness from which I came, a welcoming committee of sorts to the challenging thruway I had just entered. Nearly every sharp curve promised a showdown of more oncoming headlights, splashing into my view without notice, my eyes dripping with blindness as they billowed past. Their sporadic stampede and the narrowness of the road together gave me the illusion they were racing directly into me. The urge to swerve off in panic was a deadly instinct held into check by my frozen grip upon the wheel.
I wondered if the hands of fate ever did drugs. As I endured this portion of my journey, I began to draw the conclusion that the fate folks upstairs were wide and flying and flicking cigarette butts at a television screen displaying my feverish image. They had only to depress the button which would make my illusion real, thwarting my newfound realities into a speeding semi and tomorrow’s six o’clock news.
No sooner had I begun to pray for relief when the gorge yawned into open terrain once again. Even better, I saw that I had emerged into a more populated area. Intersections branched outwards, both to my left and right, leading through scattered residences bathed in yellow lamplight. Somehow, I felt overwhelmingly redeemed.
Until, within the next few minutes, I felt lost.
Where was I to go? I was still hungry, of course, but was I expected to simply follow my empty stomach? Follow it like that damn animated toucan follows his nose to the flavors of fruit in that cereal commercial?
If I was, it wouldn’t surprise me.
I had a good mind to pull over and park at the roadside, and wait for the unknown to come to me . With my luck, what actually would come to me would be a cop. And what would I say to him?
I dug into my pocket for more M&Ms.
There were only three left.
And they were already melting in my hands.
***
The countryside view I had wished for only lasted a mile and a half, and my precious street lights decreased in number with the concluding remnants of community farmland. The road curved at an incline as my headlights reflected back from steel guardrails perched upon fat wooden pegs rising from the embankment, directing me around a sloping grassy hillside.
I slowed to a crawl. I clicked down my high beams finally, preparing in advance for a second stampede of heavy traffic, my nerves preparing for another envelopment of rocky walls.
I didn’t prepare for what came instead, as the foothills parted and the road gave way to the approaching vision to my
Similar Books
