Day Trip

Day Trip

So I drove – I just had to get out. I got on the open road headed north because I have been south too many times before; I know what lies down that path. North, however, is mysterious: the hills seem to grow upon you like giants sneaking up on villagers. If you exit the highway onto the back roads you will notice that they wind as if the car you are in is electricity through the synapses of a rather gifted mental patient. The trees stretch overhead in a foreboding manner – as if they are hands attempting to brush you away; as if they are saying – “No, go away – you are not welcome here.” And you believe it and turn around only to find the road you traveled upon has some how altered form. The road now turns another direction leading you horribly astray while those hands reaching for the sky are telling you to turn back. You cannot, it is too far now. I found this to be true – so I kept driving steady and unyielding - letting my frantic-manic-drop-down-all-of-a-sudden guide me through this unknown place. You see I had driven to where the air is clear, where you can look out of the bay and see the islands dotted off the California coast. Out here where the smog from the city, which is broken like glass, can not penetrate the steep incline. I went here because I was immensely troubled; in fact, I was hesitating upon a much larger issue: the issue of leaving and never returning. Never again setting foot in the dank apartment in which I willfully decided to place myself – never again seeing my so called friends and family from whom I feel so estranged to them that I am almost more comfortable with strangers in small town gas stations. Never again going to my job amidst tall buildings where mad men try to genetically alter mankind to be impervious to disease because, well – let’s just face it: the human race is dying out. But they still want to find a cure, dilute it so you will not be completely cured but just hooked, sell it from behind a counter where their agent in a white coat tells you: “this will make you better”, and keep you coming back for more. Never again saying I am sorry to parents who are set on proving me wrong at every turn and then supporting my endeavors as if the mixed signals they send me in my early 20s are meant to make up for the signals they sent me as a child. Thus, I drove to find my own path through trees with only the thought of her slowing me quick ascents and descents.
I began to run low on gas and searched out a gas station. I walked inside to find the clerk looking at me with one eye – the other was lidless and the fake eyeball was extruding from the eye socket in such a manner I felt that it was searching through my being. It felt almost as if I was looking into what could be as I looked at him from my one eye with the other also fake but with a dropping eyelid. I felt a great force greater than myself saying; “This very well could be you!” And I quickly paid, took my gas soaked in the blood of some soldier so distant from myself, and left. I drove back on the highway: straight back to the place I wanted to be the least. I returned for her and her alone. I drifted past the hills that snuck away like cheeky children and the misting coast like the tears evaporating on a summers day. I parked and walked to my apartment, reached my hand out for that same old fake bronze door knob that is fading from years of use, turned it, and allowed the weight of the door to open itself. Inside it was dark, almost damp as if I had walked into a cave. I closed the door and collapsed onto the uncomfortable, but free, suttee. I sat and pondered my day of almost escaping. Next time – I will take her along with me and then we shan’t return.