TCOTNK 3 A Bright Blue Marker
TCOTNK 3 A Bright Blue Marker
She grabbed the tip of her nose, as if she was listening.
A bright blue marker
A green jeep with a long, closed trailer stopped next to her.
"Hi, I’m Chris. Where are you heading?"
He leaned with his arm stretched over the passenger seat because the window he rolled down was not electric. Open face. Day-old stubble.
"What are you selling?" Charlotte asked.
He smiled and answered with a slight impatience.
"Nothing at the moment. But I grow flowers. Mostly roses." Then he spread his hand in a gesture of, well, what do you want?
"East," she said, smiling broadly as she had intended. He tilted his head. And shook it almost imperceptibly. "Well, it's half past four in the morning, and the sky is already clearing up ahead, so I won't be far off in terms of direction."
A large sun rose a little later. An orange spectacle behind the windshield.
Chris had been asking questions since she got in, and now he was nodding with both arms leaning on his steering wheel. "So you have no money and no plan, and you don't want to look for a job."
He didn't really ask, so Charlotte didn't answer. She tried not to show how that hit home for the first time. That's what it all came down to. Living without money. Not participating in shit anymore. At least for now.
"I want to get out of this world..."
Chris looked sideways.
"You're serious, aren't you?"
Charlotte kept her eyes on the road. It took several miles before she said anything more.
"...and put an end to slavery."
With his large hands on top of the steering wheel, he kept nodding. The glow of the sun on his leathered face. The straight road passing beneath them. There was no other traffic. Forest on both sides and the burning sky in between.
"You can't do that alone," Chris said after fifteen minutes.
"That's not all," said Charlotte, shaking a soft no.
And she was silent for miles again.
Chris had began to wonder if there would ever be more when she continued.
"I can't find the words for what I feel. It's too slippery to hold onto. But I can see it very clearly."
Chris smiled.
"Fine," he said, "keep it within. It's fragile. Words could...."
"Yes, and it's growing," she said, unbuckling her seatbelt. She turned toward Chris. Sitting sideways.
"Yesterday afternoon, I made a decision. Took a decision? I don’t care. There was this real proper nine inch nail of a turning point. And immediately a sort of light bulb flickered on. Here," she poked herself between her breasts, "but further back, somewhere near my spine. At first, it was just a tiny point. Hardly anything. A spark. A microscopic firefly. Now it's a splotch, a granule, an orb so bright I can’t look straight at it. That's why I'm sitting in your car right now. That glowy point knows why. I don't. I can feel it pulling in all directions, but that's crazy. Megalomaniacal. Truly insane, the way this radiation is bouncing around in my system."
She opened her mouth and closed it again.
"Your name isn't Chris, is it?" she suddenly said. "No, don't say anything, I just know."
She grabbed the tip of her nose, as if she was listening.
"I'm getting out soon," she said. Chris looked at her with surprise.
"Why?" he asked.
"Just wait and see," the girl said.
Ten minutes later they drove past a large banner. A knight on horseback.
"Stop, stop-stop-stop," she shouted, "that's it. This is where I get out."
Chris pulled over to the side and Charlotte got out before he had completely halted. She ran back.
"There's nothing here," he hollered through the door she left open. He killed the engine, sighed and climbed out on her side too.
“That event is a week's walk from here,” he shouted. Charlotte slowly approached the big sign that stood back from the road.
“And the date six weeks from now,” he muttered to himself. “Don't even think I'll leave you here."
Charlotte didn’t hear. Her mouth was open looking up. The banner was huge. Illuminated by the morning sun. She touched the rough surface. From a distance it had looked highly realistic. Up close it was smeared paint. Large swooping brush strokes. Clods and splatters. There were even footprints.
"It's hand-painted," she shouted back with a crooked smile, "and it's signed with," she struggled to spell the painted word, "Ra... Pha... El!"
When she returned, Chris was sitting on the hood, drinking from what looked like a water bottle.
"You want some?" he asked.
She took it and smiled her newly acquired smile. The wide one.
"I said I would get out, but no one said I wouldn't get back in,” and drank half the contents in one go. It was water. It tasted like the best thing ever.
“Can you take me there and drop me off at the site? I'll be a volunteer."
They shared three hundred miles. He told about his nursery. He sang along to the unlabelled disc Charlotte had moved from the pile in the glove compartment to the greedy slot. The occasional silence sat comfortably in the middle seat. Both of them were at ease. Chris treated her to a meal at some hidden inn not officially open yet. It wasn’t breakfast or lunch. Not even chosen from a menu. Deep bowls of steaming hot stew were placed in front of them without asking. Chris cut slices of a whale size loaf by the fireplace. They drank water from a pitcher. Water that seemed to make them slightly tipsy. She laughed at his garden stories until tears welled up. Charlotte mostly asked questions and let him talk. Before getting back in the car, he encouraged her to keep doing what she was doing now. The last hour or so, while driving, she repacked her stuff on the backseat. Turning the brightly coloured prints to the inside. Amazed at the weird collection she had brought.
She hugged him tightly at the farewell.
"You're amazing," she said. "Do you have a pen?"
She made the writing sign with her left hand. He gave her a bright blue marker.
“Turn around,” she said and lifted his shirt to write on the suntanned skin. Standing back she smiled widely and confiscated the pen to the tight back pocket of her jeans. Before turning away she picked up her two now inverted supermarket bags and swirled down the grassy track towards the red and white striped tent.