the hitchhiker

“Need a lift?” he asked through the rolled down window.

“Please!” the eccentric young woman said with enthusiasm and a twirl of her black umbrella. Her small cardboard sign read “Going Anywhere”.

“Where’s home?” he asked, once they were back on the road.

She drummed her fingers on her antique suitcase. “Right here.”

“Ah. Home is where the heart is? That sort of thing?”

“Nah! What’s left of home. I’ve got a couple rail splinters, a charred patch of wallpaper and the 3 from the house number.”

He couldn’t tell if she was joking or not.

“Saves me missing something that isn’t there, y’know?”

He didn’t. He’d been missing home for a years.

“I’d rather be on the road anyways. Not running from demons or anything. Just leading them on a merry chase.”

This, he realized with clarity, was going to be an interesting drive.

sent February 2013