The Journey

Written for Writer's Cramp Contest
PROMPT: Write a short story or poem about a dark and lonely stretch of highway.

The Journey

The thing about driving solo for hours on end is that it allows too much time and space in which to think. The mind spins off into a mechanically induced trance as car sounds dull the psyche into hypnotic submission. In this altered state of consciousness shadows normally kept at bay emerge from the dank, musky caverns of the mind. Like ghosts haunting an abandoned house, they roam the quiet, empty rooms of a mind no longer cluttered.

There’s no light out here beyond the fluorescent glow emanating from the front of my car. The roadside is peppered with barren electrical poles that bear no light, and a nagging disquiet has taken hold of me. I hold my breath as I round each curve afraid of what I might find. I laugh to myself. You’re being silly. What do you expect to find around the curve? A bear? This effort to compose myself only heightens my unease as I consider that I actually could run into a bear or some other animal out here on this isolated stretch of road. A torrent of ruminations began to ravage my mind until an undercurrent, a small voice, cuts through it. You, it says. You’re afraid you’ll find you. I begin to feel light and ethereal, as though I might fall off the edge of the earth or float off the top of the next hill into the clouds. I tighten my seatbelt around me – in for the ride.