Notes from the Road 4

Chapter 4


The spark flamed and died, again plunging the small clearing by the road side into darkness. Madison relocated the flint and striker in the evening murk and cursed herself silently.

It was cold in the desert that night. The same open sky that offered no shelter from the burning sun, provides no vapour blanket to trap the warmth during the night time. She shivered, wrapping the all too thin poncho around her tighter as she continued in her attempts to steal fire from the Gods.

She had been on the road less than a week and the familiar luxuries of home were still foremost in her mind. The smell of freshly laundered sheets, the comfort that years of use wears into 'your' sofa or 'your' bed the furniture shaping itself gradually around you.

*Spark*. The tinder failed to catch. She sighed and reshuffled it around.

'The stuff you own ends up owning you' she repeated her own personal mantra culled from some book she had read many miles and a couple of years ago. It was exactly why she had struck out on her own to get away from the home comforts the distractions of the everyday. To find out what's important, what's really real, instead of excepting everyone else's version.

*Spark* Again there was no real ignition, just a small orange glow to start to warm the heart before fading out again.

She had set out with noble aims but what was really real for her right now was the total lack of matches she possessed. Or some fuel for her fancy fake Zippo that seemed to leech a petrol smell but not enough vapour to ignite. Her possessions lay scattered around her like spell bones and you didn't need to be a Witch doctor to see in her future, things looked really cold.

*Spark* She needed more kindling she decided and got up to find some.

She knew she'd packed the matches, even in her hurry to get out of the trailer before anyone else came home. There would be nothing quite as embarrassing as trying to leave home with people eating dinner in the next room. having to explain she didn't know where she was going, only where she was leaving. There would be tears arguments, threats, ultimatums and words that could never be taken back.

Better a swift sure break. Disappearing with no need to explain her actions other than the short note she'd left under the remote where they were bound to find it when they went there for their daily blessings of Soap Opera and Wrestling.

"Don't worry, I'm not pregnant or joined some weird cult. This is just something I've got to do. I couldn't explain it to you face to face and I still can't now, I just know you wouldn't understand."

*Spark* More kindling now but the same result.

She hadn't even looked back at the double-wide caravan she'd shared with them for her first 18 years. They'd got nothing in common, no shared interests or passions. Oh she'd loved them in her own way but she'd grown up seeing their faults and flaws everytime she looked at them. In her mother she'd seen a pale and shallow reflection of the woman she could become and the horror of that reality had spurred her out the door.

*Spark* This was getting very tiresome.

She couldn't ever let herself think shed made a mistake, a grand error in her calculations that perhaps she couldn't do this. Perhaps she should settle. She should accept that she was exactly where she was supposed to be. Settle for Chad's foolish fumblings on his back seat at the drive-in, instead of the champagne soaked love she knew from novels and plays. Accept that no-ones heart would ever break over her there would be no sonnets or odes written in her honour. That, "You look real pretty." would be the extent of compliments she would ever recieve.

She paused, her flint hanging over the whetstone as her mind tried to fit her enourmous soul into the confines of the tiny life she'd envisioned.

Fuck that.

Better to be cold and alone with hope than warm and unloved with no chance of hope. No opportunity to look forward. Still breathing but emotionally dead.

*Spark*

The flame caught. The burning desire simply to 'know' she'd rekindled in her heart reflected in the circle of firestones she'd assembled around the new life she'd created in the flame.