Alpine

Gambit 1 - Echoes

When the car stopped, I jolted back from the window. I must have dozed off. Squinting, I tried to get a sense of our surroundings. My breath fogged the glass into an opaque, grey mass against the evening twilight. I turned my head just enough to glimpse the red light ahead of us. Glancing down to his seatbelt buckle, "More coffee?"

"We should probably get some real food too. We're going to cross the border in 15 minutes, and most of Canada is moose and dead space, isn't it?" His fingers tapped out a syncopated rhythm on the steering wheel. It almost riffed on the turn signal's clicking but was slightly off. "I'm hungry anyway. You're hungry too, right?"

"Not really." I had not eaten since the incident the night before.

"Well, that's not going to do! You're not going to starve on me before we even get there. What do you want? I think the sign said there was a McDonalds, Subway, some local diner..."

"I'll figure something out."

"Well, I'm sticking with you to make sure you eat. I can't do the demo with a skeleton." He laughed easily at first, but his tone fell to a mockery of suppressed concern. "You know, I'm really worried about you. You've seemed stressed lately."

"It's the project."

"Yeah. I know what you mean." The light turned green, and he made a right off the exit ramp. Before this trip, I had only ridden with him twice. And I was not exactly focused on the traffic for those occasions. However, I swear he never made rights on red. Even when the road was empty like it was on this night.

He also never drove a fraction of a mile over the speed limit. If he were anyone else, I would have said he was an overly cautious driver. The reality was he did it to extend the trip those extra seconds. So he could enforce his stifling presence on me a little bit longer.

Wistfully, he said, "I'm looking forward to being done with this too."

He pulled into a space at the McDonalds. No surprise. We had gotten our coffees there too. And ate lunch-dinner there yesterday. I waited for him to get out first. I had this suspicion that if he were ever in the car alone, he would drive off without me. It was a silly fear. He enjoyed keeping me on a tight leash. That anxiety was one of my mutated ideas.

I think we all carry a lot more baggage than we are aware of. I imagine it like a toxic waste barrel, buried deep underground for theoretically safe storage. Rust eats little pin holes into it. The radioactivity slowly seeps out into everything else, poisoning the world slowly and imperceptibly. Thoughts and actions morph under that influence.

Most of the time, I can recognize my mutated reactions. I talk myself out of those sparks of insanity. But, with him, I never knew if my "insights" were my baggage leaking out or not. If he was repeating some pattern from those memories, then I had to take the warning seriously. It was safest to consider every gut feeling valid.

His door slammed closed, so I opened mine and got out. My door had barely shut before I heard the locks click. The car beeped to tell Switch to stop pushing the lock button on the key fob. I frowned. My black ski jacket that was lying the back seat. It was chilly, and I had hoped to grab it.

Oh well. I had my light, denim jacket. No need to make a fuss about the other one. Instead, I awkwardly shoved my hands into my pockets to stay warm. A simple task made difficult by the bandage on my left hand. I walked around the tan car to join him. As we walked towards the golden arches, I kept an armlength away. Safely out of reach.

"I guess you're more cold-resistant than I am." He feigned self-embarrassment as he straightened his quilted vest's collar. It was brand-new and cream-colored with a faux-fur hood. Enough flair to look stylish without making him come off as a fashionista.