![]() ![]() Tom was initially worried, but he guessed he would have also lost his appetite if he’d had to live through whatever she’d just survived. She said nothing.Īt home, she barely ate. They could try the hospital in the morning. He would run her a hot bath, serve her a home-cooked meal and let her sleep in a soft bed tonight. He decided he would take her home first, to the house he had shared with his mother. But as they entered his darkened home town, highlighted only by the occasional neon sign, he knew from experience that the cold floors, bright fluorescents and stony faces of the doctors might all be a little too much for her to take right now, especially after whatever she had been through. He had meant to take her to the hospital first, he really had. But ever since she died, he didn’t have to speak to anyone he didn’t want to, so why should the girl in his truck be any different. His mother used to force him to speak to her, and to their visitors, and to the doctors. Tom didn’t blame her, he didn’t like talking to strangers either. Tom stole frequent glances at his companion, hoping that she might say something about her home or her family, but her lips remained sealed. The winter sunlight died quickly, and they did the last stretch of the route home in almost total darkness. She didn’t say anything for the duration of the trip, but just having her there, huddled in a blanket and staring blankly out the passenger window, made him feel a little better. If he was completely honest with himself, he was grateful for the company on the Waterford road. It was enough for him to take it as a 'yes'. “Do you want to come with me?” Tom watched her for a response and, although she still said nothing, he was sure he noticed a demure lowering of her eyelids. Her blue-white skin was cold to the touch, colder even than the brisk breeze that nipped at his exposed ears and nose. He tentatively touched her shoulder, expecting her to flinch. His mother would have told him he was ‘a real gentleman’ for coming to the lady’s aid. Tom mentally congratulated himself for stopping. A number of thin, red lacerations criss-crossed her unnaturally white skin, like twine across a frozen turkey. He looked her over, embarrassed by her nudity, and saw that she had indeed been hurt. From his previous experience with women, he almost expected her to cringe, look away or jump up and run from him as he grew closer, but she waited for him, watching. He took a deep breath, jumped from the driver’s seat of the truck onto the slimy leaves and approached her with trepidation. She was lying there on the side of the road like she might have been hurt, and Tom didn’t want to leave a hurt lady on the side of the road. He drove a few meters more, his eyes locked on the rear view mirror, before he decided to pull over the truck and see if she was ok. It was only because of the high contrast between her pale skin and the darkly rotten heap of Autumn leaves that she lay on that he even saw her. ![]() In time though, everything had started to blend together as he raced for the intersection that would lead him back to the main road. When he first started driving the route, he had been hyper-aware of every tree, ditch and road-kill carcass that made up his view through the windshield. He had just turned onto the lake road and a familiar feeling of anxiety had started freezing the hairs on the back of his neck. In fact, it was something he fully expected to live with- until he met her. And as creepy as the lake road was, the quiet and the loneliness was something he could live with. There was just him, the truck and the road. There was no one to give him puzzled stares, ask him what was wrong with him or call him ‘spaz’ when he did something wrong. No one expected him to laugh at the jokes he didn’t understand, or contribute to the conversations that went over his head. What he did like about driving the truck was that it was quiet. But moving hundreds of cans of beans, pilchards, spaghetti and creamed corn between the factory and the depot was the only job he’d managed to hold down since his mother had left him in the house all alone, so he didn’t say anything. He had never dreamed of being a truck driver as a boy, and that sentiment had remained into adulthood. It was, by far, the worst part of the delivery route he had been driving three times a week for the last six months. The lake road that lead back from Waterford was potholed, poorly lit and utterly unpopulated. This was written in response to a prompt and then it kind of went. Warning: Disturbing content and references to sex.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |