Blinks in time

Highway stops in random desolate areas tend to scare the lights out of anyone no matter how brave they are. There’s something about all the dents in the walls where light reflects just like eyes watching you. Also, you can never find a restroom that hasn't been ravaged by the writing from countless souls. I like to remind myself that even the crudest of words come from people just as terrified as I am. I enjoy the idea that I can see at least a tiny piece of someone’s soul based on what they write and how. When exiting, I stride back to my truck with a bravado I don’t feel- just in case something in the dark is truly watching.

Outside my truck shivers in the freezing cold- it takes multiple loud revs before the car truly starts working. As the wheels find their pace, my numb hands connect my music and I soon lose myself in the songs. Fifty miles in, I notice a steady pair of headlights appears behind me. At first, I don’t take much notice but when hours pass and they continue to bob behind me, I begin to worry.

I tell myself I’m being paranoid again, and I try to drown my beating heart in pounding rock music; however every time I look back I see blinking lights, relentlessly pursuing me. Sunlight begins to lighten the night sky as day time creeps forward like wisteria wines climbing a wall. Soon, the morning sun is beaming down upon my car, and dew on blades of grass flying by my car shimmers. 

The car behind me must have stopped some time along the way because I don’t see the beams of light behind me. Finally at ease, I park my car along the next rest stop and step out into the vast lands of California. For a fleeting moment, my mind believes I’ve been transported into some kind of fruit commercial- grass as green as the deepest emeralds wave in refreshing cool winds that blows the hair from my neck. 

A faint memory peeks into my head- coarse hands brushing the hair from my neck on a sweltering summer day. Part of me remembers every groove in those hands as a result from tracing their distinct curves, and yet I’m not that part of me. The details are surreal- one would get the distinct feeling of being on the other side of the glass in an examination room. 

Such a feeling is not a mystery to me, and so I shake it off. During slow days in school, I would see how many visions I could tap into. If I had been born in the suburbs of some privileged state, I could’ve been the next big thing, but I could only suffocate as the weird kid in Louisiana’s agricultural center.

Huffing, I pick myself up and notice a park sign. As I approach, I make out the words, “Riverbend Park.” I look back towards the stretch of road ahead of me and ultimately decide to enjoy myself. After I ensure the truck won’t roll away, I set out towards the trail. The gravel crunches and slips under my tough, thick soled shoes. Foliage increases as I enter farther, and I see small critters everywhere. Squirrels brawl and chase one another, leaping gracefully from one pine branch to another. They shake the boughs above me, dropping flurries of loose fall leaves. Farther above, I can hear the distinct calls of robins, sparrows, and other smaller birds. They trill and whistle to each other in a language privy to themselves. 

My mother’s story surfaces from the murky depths of my soul. I faintly recall a scene so beautifully similar to this one. Of course, the story was only transcribed to me by voice; however my mother had managed to paint the story inside me with the way her voice would dip and how she would describe every little thing. Shivering under my thin blanket at six years old, I would look up into my dark bedroom and picture all the different things she told me. 

A rattle and hiss startle me out of my stupor, and my eyes focus on a thin creature before me. A rattlesnake. Its prominent tail waves behind its triangular head where a black, forked tongue flicks in and out. Someone had once told me they smelled using their tongues. Now stuck before one, I hope the creature can’t smell my fear radiating off me. Raising my hands slowly as if the creature can possibly be worried I have a weapon, I back away. One foot behind the other, silently and carefully.

When I’m far enough away from the snake, I realize I’ve almost made it back to the entrance. Satisfied with my small expedition, I walk back towards where I parked. My fading forest green truck waits right where she stood but a new vehicle flanks her. 

The new car is a Jeep- its orange paint job is absolutely horrendous. Layers of paint are peeling from wear and time, but that’s not the least of its problems. The orange shade is not only a horrendous hue, but it coats the car in various shades. The part of the body with windows and the roof is a dark, rust orange while the bottom seems more tangerine like. Both shades, however, have puke green undertones which make them seem utterly unattractive.

Colors swirl in my mind, and a bet is being made in a distant life around ten years ago. College kids, drunk and partying in a messy bar, huddled around a table. A tall kid with shaggy blond hair says that if Blake can drive around an orange car until graduation, he’ll pay him two thousand dollars. I’m not sure who Blake could be, but the offer is too good for anyone to refuse.

A car door slams. In the present, a man steps out from the monstrous vehicle, and I almost instantly note how attractive he is. 

“Pearl?” he asks tentatively.

I’m confused. For some reason, I don’t remember my name, but I’m almost certain he’s talking to me. 

“Me?” I ask him.

“Yeah, silly. Who else is there?” he laughs, seeming more sure of himself.

The attractive guy is talking to me. He thinks he knows me. I feel slightly bad for him because I can’t possibly be someone he spends his time with. I see his kind around the bars- they twirl from gal to gal, aware of their appeal to women. Most obtain the attention they’re looking for and instantly whisk away for the next conquest. 

Never would I expect for one of them to stop their life for a woman, let alone a woman like me. A second glance at his car and I begin to suspect that it was the same car pursuing me last night. The shape of the headlights, round and circular, seem all too familiar. I’m aware that there are so many cars that could have the same lights, but the coincidence seems all too strange. A cold feeling grows at the pit of my stomach. I’m stuck here, alone in the middle of some trail.

I back away slowly towards my car, but he follows me, bridging the distance faster than I can expect. A cry from the back of his car scares me, and I jump. My head whips toward the cause, and I’m surprised to see a baby that could only be around three months old.

“How’s life been with the baby?” I ask, nodding towards the lump in his backseat, “is he or she yours?” He looks at me with a strange sympathy that doesn’t sit well in my mind. The look quickly shifts to pain, and I’m left floundering in a vast array of context clues that aren’t being strung together fast enough.

“Yeah, he’s mine. Life hasn’t been too rough in terms of the baby. His mother isn’t doing so well, however.”

“How so?”

“She’s been distant, to say the least. Sometimes she zones off into these worlds in her head and I’m so scared that one day she won’t come back. I see her looking behind my head as if I’m a skeleton she can see right through.”

I wonder how beautiful this woman must be in order to neglect a country man and still have him love her so dearly. 

“Oh,” I murmur softly. I want to offer him my condolences, but it seems as if he’s going through something so much bigger than what a sorry could patch.

The baby cries again, and a maternal instinct flares inside me. Moving slowly towards the truck, I ask him if I can try comforting the baby. He responds, “Of course you can, you’re his mother afterall.”