the gyre winds down
two nights ago i was walking down a long quiet road out in the middle of the county, nothing around me but overgrown pasture and something chittering off in the bushes like a squirrel or a skunk. there was a strange metallic smell in the air, maybe someone using spraypaint over the next hill, something. the sun was definitely on it's way out, starting to dip down over the horizon, lighting up the pink and orange haze hanging in the sky. i had been walking and staring at the sky for some time, too long to describe in ordinary timesense. it was just a long walk.
i was plodding along, feeling that my destination was too far off to even care about as yet, taking the slide of the scenery in nice and slow, when the first motor i'd heard in some time came up behind me with a quiet roar. i looked over my shoulder as it came over the last bend in the road and slowed to a stop beside me and when i looked into the driver's eyes i opened the door and got into the car without hesitation.
we drove off and i sat with my hands on the sides of the bucket seat, talking quietly with her, watching her face as she drove without paying attention to the road for some time, until i noticed lights zipping past the car in the distance, and looked out to see us entering into a little valley, filled with dusty buildings, dead grass, the smell of rust and stagnant water in the air. she stopped before a little convienence store with with the gasoline pumps outside wrapped in tarpaulins and rope, the signboard for the gas prices bare and sunbleached. she wanted me to get out and i didn't want to get out but i got out anyway hoping she might change her mind, but instead she gave me a sad little smile, reversed the car out of the parking lot, and drove off the way she had came.
i stood on the porch of this place looking around, tapping a rocking chair with peeling paint and watching it blankly as it creaked back and forth. the coke machine out front was unplugged and perhaps had been hit by a farm truck at some point. from one of the windows that were mostly covered up by flyspecked posters for milk and eggs i could see a white ceiling fan spinning off-kilter. i watched it spin for a few seconds before i went inside.
it wasn't a store anymore, that seemed sure, because there was nothing inside. there were still shelves along one wall but nothing in them, a short counter near the door that might have once held a cash register, but no more. not only had the place been stripped bare, it had been sloppily repainted in a dingy cream enamel paint that blanketed every surface in the room, making it seem like everything left in the building had been carved out of dirty cheese. there was even a dirty cream-colored broken chair laying in one corner of the room, apparently just sloshed with paint and left there, now glued to the floor by half a gallon of heavy leaden paint. and next to that incredibly painted chair was a cloth-wrapped lump that might have been a large dog wearing galoshes, it might have been some prehistoric creature that shopped at goodwill, it might have been a lot of things, but among them i would not have said man. but then it woke up, stretched it's arms out from under it's wooly tartan blanket, and farted, and it was a man. i took a step back, mindful of the lighted silhouette of the door framing me from behind. he lolled his head over my direction and said "the crew's still out, i'm blacked out, fuck off," and tucked his craggy mess of a face back down under his blanket. i stood there stupid and unresponsive for a moment and then backed out of the building, shaking my head slightly to myself.
i was plodding along, feeling that my destination was too far off to even care about as yet, taking the slide of the scenery in nice and slow, when the first motor i'd heard in some time came up behind me with a quiet roar. i looked over my shoulder as it came over the last bend in the road and slowed to a stop beside me and when i looked into the driver's eyes i opened the door and got into the car without hesitation.
we drove off and i sat with my hands on the sides of the bucket seat, talking quietly with her, watching her face as she drove without paying attention to the road for some time, until i noticed lights zipping past the car in the distance, and looked out to see us entering into a little valley, filled with dusty buildings, dead grass, the smell of rust and stagnant water in the air. she stopped before a little convienence store with with the gasoline pumps outside wrapped in tarpaulins and rope, the signboard for the gas prices bare and sunbleached. she wanted me to get out and i didn't want to get out but i got out anyway hoping she might change her mind, but instead she gave me a sad little smile, reversed the car out of the parking lot, and drove off the way she had came.
i stood on the porch of this place looking around, tapping a rocking chair with peeling paint and watching it blankly as it creaked back and forth. the coke machine out front was unplugged and perhaps had been hit by a farm truck at some point. from one of the windows that were mostly covered up by flyspecked posters for milk and eggs i could see a white ceiling fan spinning off-kilter. i watched it spin for a few seconds before i went inside.
it wasn't a store anymore, that seemed sure, because there was nothing inside. there were still shelves along one wall but nothing in them, a short counter near the door that might have once held a cash register, but no more. not only had the place been stripped bare, it had been sloppily repainted in a dingy cream enamel paint that blanketed every surface in the room, making it seem like everything left in the building had been carved out of dirty cheese. there was even a dirty cream-colored broken chair laying in one corner of the room, apparently just sloshed with paint and left there, now glued to the floor by half a gallon of heavy leaden paint. and next to that incredibly painted chair was a cloth-wrapped lump that might have been a large dog wearing galoshes, it might have been some prehistoric creature that shopped at goodwill, it might have been a lot of things, but among them i would not have said man. but then it woke up, stretched it's arms out from under it's wooly tartan blanket, and farted, and it was a man. i took a step back, mindful of the lighted silhouette of the door framing me from behind. he lolled his head over my direction and said "the crew's still out, i'm blacked out, fuck off," and tucked his craggy mess of a face back down under his blanket. i stood there stupid and unresponsive for a moment and then backed out of the building, shaking my head slightly to myself.