From time to time there were quiet moments. They’d begin like other moments, but instead of saying things like, “You’re fucking shitting me,” or, “For reals man, no shit,” they’d say nothing at all. These quiet moments would be spent doing all sorts of things. They’d adjust their positions in their seats. They’d fish through the CD wallet. They’d groove. They’d stare into the distance and think long on words unsaid in the quiet moments that had passed before.

“They pulled the trigger on it.”

It meant something in the context, but the context escapes the narrator. What is known is that it came from the driver. The passenger only nodded in response. It had been a long drive.

“I was thinking,” said the passenger.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” said the passenger. “Bout that kid we saw.”

“Which one?” said the driver, disinterested, as he swerved to avoid an emaciated cow on the highway. There were more ahead, a herd of them.

“The one with the dog,” said the passenger, his voice jostling as the driver swung the car into shoulder. “Of all of them, that one bothers me the most. I keep seeing him again.”

“Me, too.”

Time passed

“The last of them,” said the driver, “the gods, that is, pulled down the mountains. These were pure mountains, though, not the kind you see out there. These were the mountains in the sky, full of life and scaled for broader places. The visible mountains are just rocks on the surface of those mountains. Those mountains are every bit of the ground that rises from the sea.”

The passenger eyeballed the skyline. “Lame.”

“Not to them.”

They’d slept in the mountains several times and seen no evidence of gods. They’d felt safe, though, and that was worth something. In those nights, devoid of warmth, they’d collected their notions of the world that remained. They would discuss their course. They would consider alternatives to flight.

There was a hope, unspoken now after so many weeks of silence in the dwindling world through which they passed, that time and space would reveal some kind of salvation. It was a dying hope, but one rich in subtle optimism. It was all that remained of their drive to press forward.

Somewhere near the memory of Portland, along a road littered in dead hummingbirds and newspaper headlines, they found a diner. They parked in the rear to avoid wrong attention, the sort of attention they’d yet to find but had nonetheless always considered after lifetimes of dramatic caveats by way of film and television.

The doors were locked. The driver was handy with a kick, however, and the dry wood offered little in the way of resistance.

“I,” said the passenger, “used to eat breakfast once a week in a place like this.”

The driver cut straight to the kitchen. “Bad for your heart,” he said as he navigated the clutter of tables and chairs.

The passenger was less interested in food. He was lost in the frozen expression of the waitress, calcified, buckled over the counter. “Sidework,” he whispered, “sucks.”

“Score!” called the driver from the kitchen.

There were beans to be had—no meat, though. The potatoes might’ve been edible, but they’d learned their lessons. There were several bottles of hot-sauce, too, and there was no denying the hunger of they’d carried through the door. The passenger made attempts at lighting the stove, but all indications pointed toward a failure at the gas company. They’d gotten used to this sort of thing. Resilient, they loaded the car with everything they could and moved toward the hills.

“I heard a song, once,” said the passenger. “It was one of those old ones. It was about kids.”

“You and your kids,” said the driver.

“No,” said the passenger, “not that again.”

How many times had their roles reversed? I wonder now as I write this account. It may, indeed be a fiction of an account, but reason stands to tell that they had many times traded roles. I sometimes wonder on which of these men is which, but it never seems to matter. Each is each distinctly himself, yet either could find himself in either seat. At this moment, there are both a driver and a passenger. The passenger speaks. The driver listens.

“It was a song,” said the passenger, “about the life we leave for children. The words stick out, but don’t think I’m talking about all of this.”

The gesture of the passenger’s hand was indicative of what they’d shared in their learning of this new and strange place through which they drove; yet, as evidenced through the fogged windows, it pointed to nothing more than endless roadside and imposing trees.

“Do you know the words?” said the driver.

The passenger shook his head.

Time, as it has over all this time, passed. The rapidity might indicate how numb the two had become.

The passenger, asleep, dreamt to the rhythm of the car, of things high above the world, looking down with sad eyes. He dreamt in the colors of Maxfield Parrish and as his imagined god wept, so, too, did he. The driver listened to the sluggish sobs from beside. He though long on the wonders of engineering. He remembered the robotics kit his mother had bought for him at the ‘86 Oregon State Fair. He remembered long on the disappointment that had followed. For a moment that stretched long into daybreak, he stared at a coming tree, some stalled car, only held in the gravity of his mind, and dreamed of an ending.

No trees came, no cars, no clutter for the road they’d inherited. There was only the sun and another day of hope. The roles reversed, as roles will do, and reversed again. From time to time there were quiet moments.

Timestamp: 11.07.06 at 01:40 AM. Filed under: Fiction.