Potholes

He swung the door open and plonked her on the seat. They were heading to the general store just on the edge of town. Since his wife died he took her everywhere he went. He didn’t trust the village. All it seemed to breed was bitterness.

Left on their own, everything had become unglued and unhinged. By night only the murky blur of rum let his mind melt into the darkness around him.

‘Daddy, do you know that stars look small now but if you fly and get closer and closer to them they become bigger and bigger and bigger?’

‘They sure do’ he half whispered as they drove through the rolling, desert dust.

‘And daddy do you know that stars have no end, they just go round and round, but on earth if you go really far away it does have an end?’

‘Uh huh’

‘And sometimes if I dig and dig under the sandpit I can see the stars under the ground.’

As she spoke he thought about how wrong it was that such a thirsty mind should be born into such an empty, useless place with nothing but despair and poverty to water it.

When they reached the corner he didn’t turn towards the shop but continued on, enduring the highway potholes. And as he glanced into the rear mirror, past his step-daughter’s wide eyes, he could see the village get smaller and smaller and smaller.