#onehourstories

The big man took his aviator glasses off,

scratched the side of his shaggy head with the purple arm. He looked at the little woman beside him.

"Smells pretty burny," she said.

The big man sighed and looked in the car, which was indeed a burned out husk and no protection from the elements. From a distance he'd hoped it was just a cool black car. He had a tendency to magical thinking which was sometimes an asset, sometimes a liability in the wastelands.

The little woman gave him a wry smile, pointing her elfin chin and milk-white eyes in his direction, despite them being sightless. "How many hours we got?"

The big man looked at the sky. "Six or seven at least," he exaggerated.

"Lots of time," she said, holding out her hand.

He smiled then, a big goofy smile entirely out of place and time, and took it.

"What kinda car was it anyway?" she asked as they walked away.

"A Corvette," the big man lied, slipping his sunglasses on and pulling her around a dry looking collection of clothes he'd learned not to examine too closely.

"Awesome," she said.

"Totes awesome."

The two of them -- Hammond and Lois -- had been travelling together almost a week. They just got sick of the safehouse and the mean people there. At first Hammond was treating it like a videogame and collecting everything they found but anything good was heavy and there was shit everywhere anyway.

"Airstream!" Hammond said, as they approached the highway.

"Nope," said Lois in a chipper way. Since the second night, when miraculously they had come across a trailer with soft beds and no deaders, Hammond kept seeing Airstream silver flashes that were always mirages.

"You're right," Hammond said. He looked at her streaky silver hair that always stuck out in an interesting way. Since he first saw her in the safehouse, when she had refused to stay with all the other sunstruck, he had spent hours marvelling at her hair. He had pretty great hair too -- more of a blonde shaggy mane he combined with his beard and sunglasses to cover his gross fat face -- but she had never seen it, and never would.

Sometimes he was tempted to let her feel his head, but then he remembered that their friendship was built entirely on words, thousands of words they they had exchanged over the past month, and that that was so much better.

"I love highways," he said. "Is that stupid?"

"No," she said. "Love is the best." She smiled at him.

"When you're on them, they seem huge, but when you see a highway from the air, it's this tiny tiny thread just, like, dropped on the earth. Stretching between places and connecting them. Remember driving on an open highway?"

Lois nodded. "I never drove in a convertible."

Hammond looked at the cars around him, wishing a convertible into existence. Wishing it even more than an Airstream. Because he didn't know what to say. Driving in a convertible with the blue sky and clouds scrolling by above was truly amazing. And can you imagine what Lois's hair would look like? Hammon boggled, and felt a sadness that inexplicably was deeper than any he'd felt since the world had ended.

"Is it awesome?"

"Uhh..." said Hammond, stalling, wanting to lie but knowing it would come out in his voice.

"It's that awesome?"

"Uhh..." continued Hammond.

"Just say it."

"It's so awesome!" he blurted out. "I only did it once, with my cousin from Tucson, but if you squint it kind of feels like you're on a flying carpet."

"The cousin from Tucson who you had a crush on?" she said. Lois knew about all his crushes in great detail, long before they'd left the safehouse. All except one.

"Yeah," he said. "Melanie."

"Wow. Extra awesome."

Hammond looked at Lois, a little amazed at this little woman who got him so profoundly. "Ultra awesome."