Tiny dots

I’m sitting here thinking about the time you left me on the side of the road. And the times before that when you left me on doorsteps and rooftops and sidewalks, and in beds and bars and countries. 

But the time you left me on the road. It was an afternoon of particular lightness. There was scheduled to be an eclipse that evening. Chasers traveled in troves to viewing areas, to cities where the effect would be most magnificent. A buzz in the air, like we were on the set of a science fiction movie. Aliens, zombies, some miracle. Totality.

We were driving through Missouri on a road trip. It had been 12 days, just us and the Cadillac that belonged to your Grandfather and the tired cassette tapes which were all it would play. The sucking noise you’d make with your tongue against your teeth to the beat of the song. 

We’d been in a lush, comfortable silence since Springfield. The day was hot and the air smelled burnt. You were driving, you always drove. I don’t recall anyone else on the road. Not for miles. I had my eyes closed and my face turned to the side and the dry air funneled through the window, whipping at my face. I was in some state of sub-presence, where staying awake feels impossible but to actually fall asleep would be dramatic. Attuned to the moment, the surrounds, but undisturbed, peacefully unaware. 

Suddenly, the car kicked and lurched forward, swerving into the other lane and back as it wheezed and bumped along. You pulled over and smoke bubbled from beneath the hood. We got out and the air we sucked was still hot and thin, but now it smelled like bitter chemicals and burnt rubber. You popped the hood and waved aside the smoke. I peered over into this maze of dust covered metal and orange rust, and felt terribly out of place. As if I should have known better, payed attention to the signs. But I was with you, I thought, so it was okay. You bent forward to touch the metal and I stepped back into place.

It must be the carburetor, you said.

It must be the eclipse, I said and you rolled your eyes.

The crossing of the moon over the sun was still a couple hours away, but the day was already taking an eery tone, how it feels right before the sky opens up and screams out the thunder it’s been swallowing. We sat on the side of the road while the Cadillac smoked and we peeled peanuts from their shells, tossing the discards onto the road, and shared a bottle of warm water. I placed my hand over yours and you looked over at me. You didn’t move it away. I don’t think you moved it. But now, looking back at this moment, I see the discomfort in your smile, the certainty that this was no longer for you, unsure what to do about it, but sure at least of that. Back then it was just a smile, no layers.

Someone will come, I said. And we waited. 

I don’t remember a single thing we talked about that day. We must have talked to each other. Must have enjoyed some level of intimacy. But I can’t quite touch those moments. As if only one lifeless limb was in attendance, my heart here the whole time. 

When no one came, you decided to walk the three or so miles to the gas station to find help. I would stay with our stuff. I was worried you might get hit by a car while you were walking, that you’d get dehydrated, sunburnt, tired, pissed off. I wanted you to stay with me. I’d learned how to track you, staying in carefully manipulated and constant sympathy with your every movement. Anticipating your moods, when you might leave, when I might have to chase.

But you went and I stayed. You walked in the direction that we’d come from, and it was nice because the road was straight and I could still see you twenty minutes later. A tiny dot, but there you were. Even then I recognized your steps, the way you hunched your shoulders, carried your head. I thought there was probably sweat dripping down your back, your forehead. That you were singing a song in your head. That it was strange we were the only two people in this moment, but we were so far away, couldn’t speak to each other. I thought about yelling to you, but before I finished the thought immediately felt foolish.

I ate some jelly beans, leaned back in the grass next to the road and looked up at the sky. It was the middle of the day and it was hot, but it was slowly getting darker. The feeling of the bigness moving closer, that something massive was being written into the script while the world gathered to watch, helpless but curious, eager for even a small moment of wonder, whatever the consequence. 

The heat suddenly buckled and the world filtered with greyscale. A light wind picked up and my eyes closed.

I remember thinking about the day we met. You were drinking beer with your friends in the backyard of Kevin Maguire’s house and I was inside with the girls standing around the kitchen island, slicing triangles of watermelon down the middle and using them to garnish red plastic solo cups filled with vodka and something. I kept looking outside through the screen door to make sure you were where I thought you were, keeping a map with just one marker on it the whole evening. 

We carried the drinks outside and I claimed your direction, passing out a few on the way for the sake of subtlety before I landed on you. You smiled and asked if you were supposed to eat the watermelon first or last. I laughed and wasn’t sure what the cool answer was, so I drank one too. 

Sarah, right? you said, even though we both knew you knew, and we talked about college and our jobs in the city and what it’s like to have divorced parents. You told me you wanted to buy a cabin upstate and I remember thinking, so does everyone. But we were young. And I wanted everything then too. My friends started to leave and you told me to stay. I was nervous I wouldn’t get home or worse that I’d seem desperate if I stayed. But I stayed.

We stood outside in the front yard. The sprinklers had just gone off and the grass was wet and my sneakers were soaked through and stained green. You put your hand on my waist, pulled me toward you and kissed me with dense lips. You tasted like flat beer and watermelon. You slid your hand down my leg and reached up the back of my dress, squeezing your lanky fingers around my ass and pushing me close against you. Nothing would have been too fast that night.

But your friends were leaving and you were drunk. They yelled at you to hurry up and piled into cars in front of the house. You started to step away but swung back and we kissed again. Man, you’re pretty, you said and I felt like I could fly. They yelled they’d leave without you. You got in the car, four abreast in the back seat, rolled down the window and winked at me as you drove away and I stood in the yard, green stained shoes, flat beer on my breath, no way home, alone and in heaven with the thought of you.

I opened my eyes and the world was dark like dusk. I sat up straight and looked around, suddenly scared. How long had you been gone? What time was it? It could have been dark for hours, night or day, and I didn’t know. Surely you’d have been back by now. But I couldn’t grasp any of the familiar signs or senses. I looked around. The world seemed in tact. Crickets. Blades of long grass rustling with the breeze. My heart still beat. There was a steadiness, a rhythm, a certainty as I stood and moved my legs. They felt like rooted trees in the ground. Chilled, I looked for a sweatshirt in the back of the car, trying to recall the hour that you left, wondering whether you would come back.

And then I remembered the eclipse. The eclipse. I looked up at the darkness and yes, the two tiny perfect spheres were touching. Holding each other in a gentle embrace, overlapping as if by chance but with tremendous intimacy, gracefully welcoming this uncommon moment to come and go with inevitability. Though they’d revolve around each other forever or until the end of time, they’d go their separate ways, continue on their revolutions, forever glimpsing each other’s shape in the distance. A tiny dot on the horizon. 

I thought it might stay dark forever. This thought gave me comfort as I remembered the broken car and the trip ahead of us. I stood with my face pointed up, willing it to give me something and feeling the fierce luminosity of the sun’s light through the closed lids of my eyes, warmth coming off the asphalt, climbing up my legs. Everything still, but with a rhythm to the silence. I didn’t want it to end. 

The sucking noise you’d make with your tongue against your teeth to the beat of the song. Where were you, anyway?

The white light began to shift to slow yellow. The crickets, thrown by the brief moment of familiarity, quieted. A few strings lingered, but only for a brief second as the wind picked up and threw dust in playful spasms.

Daylight arrived and the sun looked like the sun again. A truck, glazy and dizzy with the heat from the asphalt approached. I could hear the thunder of its machine and I knew it was you. I recognized first your firm tanned arm, hanging from the passenger window. It gave a slight lift of the hand as you got closer. You and a grey middle aged man with a beard of stubble and a hat with a wide brim. He looked unsure and you looked blank. Or I just can’t remember how you looked. I watched you come. I wondered if you knew what had happened here. 

The above is an excerpt from the short story Tiny Dots.