The boy was looking better today.  She had thought she’d have to drop him off at the nearest hospital last night, but this morning he seemed to be breathing okay.  And his eyes were clear. As he turned to look at her, appraising her sharply, she had noted his eyes were so very clear.  And so young.

Oh, she thought, only the young can recover so quickly.

She didn’t know why she had picked him up in the first place.  She was on her way to nowhere, but moving with determination or speeding, who knows, her mess of a suitcase in the trunk, filled with what, she couldn’t remember.  But the boy had stopped her in her tracks, his lonely figure rising up in the middle of her odyssey looking as he did, a thumb barely raised, shoulders hunched.

She could see him in the distance, her high beams had somehow found him so far off and as she drove he seemed larger and larger until just before she would pass him, she slowed down to get a better look and surprised herself by stopping.  

She nodded to him and he threw himself into the car like a sack of garbage, positioning himself in the passenger seat as if they were both in agreement she would now take him to the dump.  

Where are you going, she asked.

Anywhere, he whispered.

She rolled out onto the road. 

He immediately fell asleep and as she relaxed into her driving, above the sound of the motor, she heard his labored breathing, the hint of a squeal like a tiny man inside his chest, perhaps screaming for help in a sea of congestion.  Not good, she thought.  

She figured him to be anywhere from 14 to 20 something but he could have been any age, there was no way to tell with him out cold, except she noted some blemishes on his skin.  He was terribly thin, floating around in a gigantic grey hooded jacket, wasted thin but he was clean if shabby.  

She worried for a minute he might have something contagious; there was that hiv or scars or something with initials going around and she wondered if he had it.  She decided not to be worried.  If her hitchhiker was going kill her, it wasn’t going to be by coughing on her.  

She had been speeding along the road, sometimes taking the faithful red beast up to 100 miles an hour or more, but then scaring herself, she’d slow down.  Speeding, slowing, speeding, slowing.  This isn't getting me anywhere, she said out loud, although she was almost happy, excited even to think she was rapidly on her way to something.  

At this point the first something was this boy, a very sick boy. What to do?

She kept driving hard away from the dawn when she saw a station coming up decided to pull in and get gas.  As she filled the tank, she considered for a moment that he might steal the car when she went inside to pay but decided on the spot there was nothing to lose and none of the usual rules would be applied.  So she left her pocketbook, her belongings, her car keys, her car in his sleeping possession and went inside to get a coffee for herself and something for the kid taking just enough cash from her purse.  

Returning with coffee and hot soup for him, she could see him in the car awake now, looking through the windshield,  staring hard at her as if he was examining her many extra heads.

Are you nuts lady?  I coulda robbed you!  I coulda taken the car and left you right here!  Are you trying to get me in trouble?

She smiled softly at his words as she settled back in the driver’s seat and still smiling, handed him the container of hot soup.  It was then that she noticed with great relief he didn’t look like he was going to die in her car.  

She turned on the ignition, and starting the engine pulled out of the station, a rising sun in her rearview mirror,  out on to the waiting road.  

 Page top:  A Dark Widing Road Painting by Arnold Isbister

Apparantly this is a series.  I wish I could say with assurance, Oh yes, this is going somewhere but like my character, I will go where the road leads.  
 I am having the BEST time writing.  Thank you all for such wonderful encouragement.  

This is the first chapter of this story:

Chapter One: 50 Ways To Leave