It was late in the day, yet the evening sun hung lowly in the sky caressing the earth in its heat. The only relief from the heat was the occasional breeze that gently brushed the road for one sweet second.
At the a gas station beside the beginning stretch of the road, a young woman sat in her car. She had parked it in the last sliver of shade left there, not planning to move. She felt no need, it was nearly night, it would be cooler, so she decided to leave then. As for now, she was content with her parking spot.
Cool air danced from the vents into her brown hair, snaking its way to the back of the car. There it was joined by the silky beat of the bass from her speakers. She stretched back, ready to take a quick nap before dusk.
A loud, abrupt knock barred her from her sleep. She quickly turned her head to see a stout man standing outside her window. His furrowed brow and tightly pursed lips told a story of a long history of making such an angry face. He lifted his hand, ready to knock again. The woman, sensing that this knock would be louder than before, rolled the window down before he got a chance to even start.
The portly fellow explained that unless she bought something, she would have to leave. Though in the manner he spoke, it sounded more like he wanted her gone either way, and right away. The woman agreed and left her car to follow the man inside the gas station.
It was dreary, not like most other convenience stores found in a gas station, no this one was less welcoming, more dismal. It was somewhat like the summer heat had slowly melted the will of this place. The displays were warped, either by the heat, or some sort of water damage, some, by both. A stale cloud of heat and cigar smoke hung in the air. The woman tried to ignore the putrid interior and walked over to the snack stand.
After some minutes of searching for an unopened bag of chips, she finally gave up and made her way to the counter. The man was there, at his post, a cigar dangling from his lips. He eyed the woman as she told him she couldn't find anything to buy, and asked if he had any soda she could buy from him. He sighed and began scuttling around the store in search of something. His small build and his corpulent appearance running around the gas station was quite humorous, at least to the woman, who couldn't help but laugh.
The man noticed this, and quickly retreated to the back room, to search some more, in private. While left alone, the woman started to look around. A box of cigars here, a pile of paper there. The place was a mess, but they did have one thing, they had a television, and a remote. The woman reached for the dusty and grimy remote and hesitantly clicked the television on. A blur of static covered the screen. She changed the channel only to find more static. She did this with 8 more stations before landing on one that worked. It was the news.
A lady dressed in a blue blazer sat at a desk and spoke of things such as the new park construction, a crime or two, a police shooting involving some man named Calvin, the spread of the new "pandemic," who is the best candidate for the upcoming election months away. Stuff that didn't concern her but still she watched, somewhat hypnotized by screen. It was the first time in a while that she actually stayed focused on the news. And even if this stuff was menial, she was still as engaged in it as if it was the bombing of the capital.
A few moments later of more brief and unimportant news stories, the portly man was back. He huffed and set a bottle of juice onto the counter, explaining that that was the last thing that they had to offer. The woman smiled sympathetically and handed him the money in exchange for the juice and left. She thanked the man and politely turned off the television. With a smile and a soft wave, she left the gas station.
She walked to her car and tossed the juice in the passenger seat before plopping down in the drivers side. Neglecting to close her door, she just sat there, basking in the fading shade of the setting sun. It was getting late, almost time for her to start driving. She sighed. It had been a long day, and it still wasn't over. But that didn't matter, she had now, this blissful pause, just to catch up and relax.
She looked up and fingered a note on that was above the dashboard. The soft notebook paper felt like silk against her fingers. She unfolded it and smiled again at her messy, yet neat handwriting. She couldn't wait to give it to her boyfriend. It was silly, how much she cared so much about a little love letter she had wrote, but she just hoped he would care about it as much as she did. Smiling once again, the woman folded up the paper and set it neatly on top of the dashboard again.
A short while later the sun was nothing more than a sliver on the horizon. The woman smiled and shut the door as the cool desert air began to creep in and chill her. She bucked up and began driving down the long stretch of the road. This road was long, stretching the whole span of the desert-like land. The good part though, it was almost always empty, which saved her many of time from being late. And this time was not different.
All of the time she had used waiting for the sun to go down, she had wasted, for she was now only 30 minutes away from a dinner in an upscale restaurant with her boyfriend. The drive down to the restaurant usually took over an hour going the speed limit. But, the woman, assuming that no police will be out at the birth of dusk, she began to speed up.
About halfway to her destination she made a hard right and couldn't stop from colliding with a eighteen wheeler.
Metal twisted and contorted, smoldering from the impact. The car had flipped over, in an attempt to avoid the crash. The hood of the woman's car was distorted and destroyed. Some of her tires completely missing. The bottle of juice spilled over the pavement. She was slumped over a pile of rubble out of the street, a jagged spike of hot molten metal stuck out of her abdomen.
A police sign right at the crash loomed over her, like a sign of her sin. It proclaimed her undoing with simple characters flashing on a screen. 167mph.
The woman, in a last attempt of retribution, reached out for the note she had so delicately wrote, that was now sprawled out on the street. Her bloody fingers quivering, trying to grasp this one last thing. But alas, she failed, and she slowly succumbed to death's cold embrace.
The paper stayed there, a corner stuck under a piece of debris, lost, wavering in the cool desert breeze. The only words left to define it being the signature, "Love, Sarah."
