Far from home

It’s a Tuesday like any other in 1996; today is the first one in June, three months before every teen who couldn’t leave will have their fate decided by the election. Today is the day I leave, still only fifteen, nine hundred thirty-two kilometres away from the only border. I know I should’ve left sooner, especially with the iron pits rumours picking up. Child labour camps to silence us and keep teens here. It’s currently my first night on the road, and I’m about to sleep against a makeshift cardboard tent next to a motel. I have already walked for most of the day in this desert, which I’ll be walking for the majority of my journey, other than a pine forest that’ll signify I’m nearing the border.

I woke up in one of the motel’s rooms on an actual bed, and a middle-aged white man was smoking near the window. He’s in all black with a scar over his lazy eye… It’s probably one of those glass ones. The room smells horrible, like bleach and rotten cheese, and it doesn’t look much better, just simple wallpaper that was peeling at the edges a little. There’s another shut door near the bed I’m on and a rather large oak closet- I mean, like it’s big enough for two whole people to walk in. His gruff voice commands, “I did you a favour here, now you need to do me one as well to make it even.”

A quick knock comes from the motel’s creaky door. His voice comes out rushed now, and he ordered, “Get in the closet and don’t make a sound.”

He practically shoved me into the closet, and the smell got even stronger, a sickly-sweet scent. It feels smaller than it looked, probably because there’s a bunch of clothes piled on the floor, at least it looks like that. I can’t hear much of what was happening outside the closet, just bits and pieces of a conversation between the smoker and the motel owner, I think. During all that, I don’t dare move, but after about two minutes, it seems the conversation died down, so I let my eyes drift over to the pile of clothes. I immediately stumbled out of the closet as I realized the clothes weren’t clothes at all but a strangled-out cop! The man is unfazed at my discovery and explains, “You see, this man is filthy and he needs a bath. However, it seems I forgot the soap, if you wouldn’t mind bringing him to the bath while I get it.”

He strolls out the motel door as if he has no conscience to weigh him down. However, I follow his instructions and drag the lifeless corpse into the bathroom and into the tub. That’s when I hear a knock at the door, look through the peephole, and see what I believe is the motel owner. He’s just another white, middle-aged man, and I see further behind the smoker trudging back with a tank of gasoline in his left hand. As I unsteadily half-opened the door, the owner was already speaking, “Oh, you’re the kid Jarod paid for, he’s a really kind man even though he doesn’t look like it.”

Seeing the smoker named Jarod walking back, I knew I had to keep the corpse from him to help him. If I live, I’d tell him when we were truly alone, but not now. So instead, I stammer out to him, “Yeah, he is quite kind anyway. I got to go do something.”

Then I swiftly slammed the door. Roughly a minute later, Jarod returned to the shabby room and told me, “Good job, kid, here as payment for you kindly helping this cop have a bath.”

He pulls out his wallet and shoves a twenty into my hand. Holding the cash in my hand, I quickly run out the door, scan my surroundings, and start rushing towards what seems to be the check-in desk. I lock eyes with the owner, and I shout, “Jarod killed someone!”

That’s when I heard the ear-deafening sound of a gunshot right beside my ear, and I now see the motel owner’s forehead bleed out as he collapses, dying immediately. Jarod’s raspy voice stated, “This is your fault, you know, if you kept your mouth shut, I wouldn’t have had to kill that man.”

I don’t turn around to see his face, I just hear his feet stomp, then a car door open, an engine start, and a yellow taxi car drive away. I should mourn this man, but I don’t have the time to do so; instead, I grab his wallet from his jeans back pocket and take the eighty dollars he had. I should leave right away, but one of the room keys glimmering in the sun catches my eye, number twenty-four, so I pocket it as well. I walk to the side of the road and stick out my thumb.

It took about half an hour before someone stopped to let me into a moss-green pickup truck, with a teenage black boy at the wheel. I let myself in and take a better look at the boy. His hair is in an afro, and he’s wearing white shorts and a t-shirt. I recognize his face; he’s on the missing persons list. Now that I think of it, I’m probably also on that list now. I mentioned, “I’m not sure if you need this now, but I have gas money.”

He just nodded and started to drive off. On the road, he stayed silent, so I stared out the window for hours until I dozed off to sleep in my seat once the sun finally set. The next morning, I woke up to see we had pulled over on the side of the road; the teen was outside taking a drag of a cigarette. I saw the boy looking in the truck’s window, and he dropped his cigarette on the ground, stomped it out, and got back in the car. Once he fully got in, the boy remarked, “We’re nearing empty, but we’re near a gas station. I’ll fill it up, and you’ll go inside to pay for it.”

I nodded my head as he turned the car key and started to drive. It was only ten minutes to the gas station, and the boy pulled into pump number three. Looking at the gas prices, I still can’t believe it’s all the way up to 68 cents; it’s absurd how high it's gotten recently. The teen looks at me and says, “Tell whoever is working thirty on pump three.”

As he begins to pump gas, I gaze over the lot with my eyes, and I notice a police cruiser in one of the far-left spots. They set up almost everywhere to scare people away, so I shouldn’t be worried about being caught. Glancing in the store, I see the news playing, which means I won’t have a long time to pay for gas before the missing persons list goes on. But I trudge to the entrance of the store, not letting my fears get the best of me. The store smelled like it had just been cleaned with a mop bucket in the corner of the room, and above the mop was a television. Each and every one of the aisles was filled with unimportant junk that I barely bothered glancing at. The clerk was another teenager; he was probably seventeen, definitely white, and extremely pale. There were a couple of other customers in the store, including a white man in all navy blue, with his shiny badge on his bulletproof vest, buying milk. My breath hastens a little, and I hurry to the counter and say my words unsteadily, “Thirty dollars on pump three.”

The barely audible news gave me an idea when it said, “Remember this is the tenth anniversary of when those black brigade terrorists first tried to collapse the border with their truck and caused the landslide, so remember if you want to keep all those scums in jail to vote Tyrak.”

I noticed a few cans of spray paint behind the counter, added them to my order, and made the total thirty-one dollars instead. I gave the boy exact change. That’s when the news segment changed to missing teens, and I see two things: my face on the screen and the cop looking at both me and the television. I bolt to the truck, only taking enough time to grab the spray paint, and I shout out to the boy, “Get in the Truck now! We need to go!”

The teen obliges and turns the ignition on as I practically jump in, and he hits the gas. Looking at the speedometer rise from 10 to 100, I think we might be able to escape. Glancing at the rear view mirror, the cruiser has also sped up, and he’s right on our tail, and we are just about to pass a billboard. We should’ve made it past, and we would’ve until the billboard collapsed in on itself and debris landed on the road and our truck's engine, leaving the teenager in the driver's seat crushed. That’s when the cop pulled over, not to try and help, instead, he yanked me out of the pickup with a sick grin and slammed me into the ground. The dirtbag of a cop then started to monologue, “All of you stupid teens don’t know how good you have it under Tyrak, and all you want to do instead is leave, to check to see if the grass is greener on the other side! Well, it isn’t! This country is the best you can get, and now you’ll be left to work for Tyrak!”

He paused to breathe, and something just came over me like unbridled rage. I’m not sure why, maybe it was his cocky grin or the fact that he doesn’t care about the teen’s death. Maybe it wasn’t because of him, but rather because of Jarod. However, the why doesn’t matter; I just need to do something. I remembered the key I took that’s in my back pocket; I pulled it out and stabbed the scum in his eye. I didn’t stop when I heard his screams or when his screams stopped, not until I felt like his body had the right number of injuries. I also checked the cop’s wallet, which had $75, his I.D., and, most importantly, a government pass that I took. With this, I can officially say I’m the child of an officer, which would’ve been helpful before the teen died. But I don’t have the time to be sorry, so instead I keep walking.

With the sun blazing down on me, I keep walking, tears a constant stain on my vision, but I keep walking as days and nights pass without any landmarks, with only cardboard tents to sleep in. That is, until on my third night of walking, when I see pine trees in the distance and a little red telephone booth. Mustering all my remaining strength, I rush over to the booth as if it’s the most important thing in the world, because right now it is to me. I check my wallet, put a dollar in the slot, and pick up my home phone, hoping it wouldn’t be my parents answering. It rings, and it rings until I hear a click, and I say, “Hi, look, I know…"

I hear the voice on the other side start to sniffle, and I hear my little brother's voice cut me off, “We were supposed to leave together! You shouldn’t have just left!”

I quickly respond, “I know I did, and I should have told you, and I’m sorry, but you can still leave without me. I swear I’ll meet you after

the border. If you make it, and I have enough cash to pay for a smuggler for you.”

My brother replied, “But I won’t be able to make it that far without you!”

I said in response, “You can do great things without me. I believe you can make it without me.”

Finally, my brother relents and says, “Alright, I’ll head out tonight, thanks for this and good luck on the road.”

I hear the same click from the start of the call, hang up and keep walking. I won’t have time to keep stopping tomorrow. So, I scan my surroundings and see another one of those cardboard tents. I walk towards it, basically collapse into it, and sleep.

The next morning, I feel slightly less exhausted and ready to keep walking, but this time in the shade. Smelling the pines almost made me stop for a second, but I kept trudging through while sticking my thumb out whenever a vehicle passed by. It took a couple of different cars until someone stopped. It was a girl on a motorcycle, and she even had a spare helmet for me. We couldn’t really make conversation due to the winds being deafening, but she still tried to talk, practically shouting, “What’re you leaving here for?”

“Well, you know Tyrak isn’t making the most child-friendly place on earth with all the child labour camps!” I yelled back.

“Yeah, I get that I’m planning on leaving myself soon, but you know, legally,” responded the motorcyclist.

We didn’t try to speak more than that; it was too annoying to keep repeating ourselves. So, I just looked at all the trees passing by; it must’ve been forever since I last saw trees that looked alive. It was so good that I almost forgot I had barely been eating or drinking anything. But there’s a shoddy food stand near the border, so I’ll eat there. I never thought I’d actually make it this far; I don’t even know what to do if I make it out, but that’s a big if. I can figure it out after. Eventually, the girl stops, and she says, “It’s too close for me to keep driving with you, but the way is close enough for you to walk.”

With that, I get off, and she keeps driving. Apparently, there’s an off-road trail to get closer to the border somewhere just a little further up. Another twenty or so minutes later, and I see a trail on the other side of the road. Checking both ways before I bolt, and I see exactly what I thought it would be, except better. There’s a giant pond, and across from that a little cave that must be the path forward. I breathe a sigh of relief and begin to saunter down to the pond, and I dunk my entire head in for a quick second. Just to feel the cold on me again, and then I shake my head like a dog. Feeling reinvigorated, I keep walking and take a stop at the caverns' entrance. I check my pockets for the spray cans I bought and spray-paint the words “one day I will return to a better land without Tyrak.”

Entering the cave, I see a little stone cairn with three rocks on it, and it's more of a tunnel than a full-on cave. Glancing around the room, I see another rock and put it atop the cairn. I take a closer look at a boulder in the corner of the room and push on it, since apparently, they have a hidden spot for teens with excess cash to help others. I put one hundred thirty dollars in, leaving thirteen dollars to my name, and I walk past the tunnel. This brings me back on the road again; however, this time I can see the border walls in the distance, so I keep walking. Now I see the food stand with a thin dirt path behind it. A middle-aged woman was running the stand. There was one thing I noticed, though: no cops were nearby, compared to almost everywhere else near the border. So, I walk up to the stand owner and ask her, “How can I get past the border?”

She responds, “Keep it quiet, but there’s a tunnel you can get to from the path behind me that leads out.

I nod and walk past her to the path. There was a bunch of other teens chilling around where the path widened, but more importantly, a steel door. I rush past everything else and go to the door. Another teen starts to tell me, “You need a key card to enter that. Lucky for you I’ve got one, for a price.”

I show him my government pass and ask, “this enough?’

He nods, takes the card, and hits a scanner next to the door. With a screeching sound, the door slides open, and I walk in. You can barely see in this place, with only the light coming from tiny light bulbs hanging on the ceiling. I could barely see the steel walls and floors, slightly rusting at the edges, as I keep walking. Going around a corner, I see it the exit, a light coming from the outside, I’m just a short distance away from freedom. I start to sprint over to the door, my footsteps booming from the echo as I make it halfway there. Until I hear that same ear-deafening noise this time further back. This time, it was aimed at me. What I didn’t notice while running was a door open, an officer aiming his gun at my thigh and that the door to freedom was shutting. I don’t have time to worry about all of that, so I keep sprinting. More shots were fired all of them missing, luckily. I see the door about to shut; I lunge through right before I hear the door screech shut. I stumble outside to a new country, a new life, because I survived the old one.