One Hell Of A Trip

This is another short short that I am rather attached to. I do kind of hope that with some editing I could get this one up to snuff and submit it somewhere.

The girl stops and breathes deeply. Even from yards away the sight of the old beaten down Dodge Neon is like coming home after years of being away. She feels the familiarity sending an ache deep down to her core, suddenly aware how the unfamiliar surroundings just couldn’t fill the space she hadn’t even known was there, or maybe didn’t want to know. She starts slowly forward again, step by slow step, until suddenly she is right beside the door, breathing heavily as if she had been running to it all along. Maybe she has been, she doesn’t really know anymore, can’t tell what’s real or fake, made up or dream, because now the familiar is falling over her in waves, rushing her senses, drowning her under the onslaught, her hand cradling the familiar grip of the door handle, glancing at that dent in the side, the scar cementing the back door shut where the deer hit on the way back from that long trip, in the middle of that long talk, and suddenly she is settling into the seat and there is the hole like a missing eye where the air shutter should have been, pushed out and broken, “Goddamnit keep your feet off the dash,” still echoing, always echoing, echoing in time with the radio, the volume knob broken off, who cares because the music was always better loud, and the dome light gives off its solemn glow, the illumination of midnight confessions and secrets told in the almost dark, don’t worry it never leaves the car, and the girl fingers the purple beads hanging from the mirror, a sign of spirit that couldn’t be lost, oh how they swung when the car turned fast, the two of them, two girls on one hell of an adventure the moment the engine turned over, just keep the windows down and the beads swinging and everything would set itself right, just never stop. But now the girl pulls them back, watches them sway once more, then pulls away. Shuts the door. Makes it stop. A thousand more memories are pressed against the glass but the girl turns her back and walks away, the secret whispers of the past left behind with the friend that never got to leave.   

By Alissa Tsaparikos