Gone

I walked out to the road on the edge of my propertiy as I do often. The day was hot, but sometimes the heat feels good on my bones. The sun was high, no clouds to be seen, just the right breeze. I almost thought I could smell peaches.
Two firgures up in the distance was comin down the road. seemed strange but sometimes the neighbors did like that. The road led into a highway, I forget which one, but also to a strip mall with a theater. Sometimes those girls whos names I never remembered, either, went up there to watch movies. They wasn't old enough to drive.
I rolled myself a cigarette, sat back in me lawn chair and stared at the pecan orchard across the road. Sometimes on Sundays like this one Lydia from down the street brings sweet tea and I thought pickin some pecans to give her. She could make a pie or somethin, surely.
The two kids approached, but it wasn't the girls. A couple, boy and girl, sun tanned dark and red colored. They wore dirty old clothes, but didn't loot homeless. Hitchhikers sometimes stalked this stretch of road and I figured that was it.
They stopped by my chair. The girl smilin real big, a backpack on her back, I couldn't see to well, on account of not having my glasses, but it seemed like she was pregnant.
"Scuse me, sir." she said. "we're wonderin if you know how far we have to go from here."
I looked at her for a minute or two, then explained that if they was hitchhikin they could stay right here, or go up the mile to the main highway.
She smiled bigger and tilted her head like a cat or a dog. "Oh, no. We're not hitchhikin no more! It's just a few more miles, right?"
I looked at her again. Then at him, adjustin his glasses. "Come on" he said to her, not lookin at me. "He doesn't know. We should be going."
she was even more confused lookin, started pushin down the wrinkles in her shirt, lookin back and forth between me and him. Didn't know what exactly these kids were gettin at. At the time I thought maybe they were on drugs of some sort. She looked at him and said quietly "How can he not?
"Aren't you goin, too?" she turned to me again.
"No he's obviously not, let's go we don't know how much longer we have to walk." He started walkin ahead and she just looked upset, as women often do, and then turned back to me and apologized. For what I didn't know just yet.

A few days later I tried turnin my radio. Got nothin but static. The reseption way out here was never too good and the TV didn't work either. I drove into town the day after that, no cars on the road. None at the gas station where I stopped to fill up, but there was no Joe inside or gas pump boy outside. I finally decided just to fill her up and leave Joe some money on the table.
Nobody was at the general store, either. No cars in the parkin lot, the doors locked, no cars out back. There was no one. I road by Lydia's on the way home, but they wasn't there. Their cars were gone, no answer at the door from the girls.
I think that was when I began to realize. But was still in denial. I decided to go to Publix in Thomasville and drove the 45 minutes up there, still not seein any car on the road or highway. Turned on the radio in my truck, but still only got static.
When I got there the street lights were turned off. Still no traffic, no open signs on. Even Publix was empty. Doors locked.
Next day I drove down to Tallahassee. Not a single car on the way there. Not a single hitchhiker. Not no one.
I parked at a gas station with no one in it. No lights on, doors locked. I walked away into the street and looked up and down the road. Up into the sky. down to my feet.
Think I might have died of panick but I instead got back into my truck.
I drove back to my house and made tuna salad sandwiches. Still had some food, had the pecans and peach trees. I sat out on my back porch to where I could look at the pines. Smoking a cigarette while the sun disapeared behind those trees. I had always known it would come.


Back a long time ago when me and my wife got divorced we were so mad at each other. She had been seeing another man and I had been goin huntin or campin every weekend. Said I didn't spend enough time with her, didn't love her. She said I would die alone. I reckoned she didn't know what she was talkin 'bout.
Now I see I was wrong.