He didn't think it was possible to get bored of colour.
He didn't think it was possible to get bored of the colour, yet here he was, driving, along an empty road surrounded by trees, bright with crimson and scarlet. The sunlight gleamed through the forest and shone in his eyes, illuminating the soft brown gaze, partially focused on the road, and partially focused somewhere else.
He thought. He found himself doing that a lot these days. He would find himself staring at his work and suddenly it happened, he was gone. Physically, he would still be present, but mentally? Not even a glimmer. He became so absorbed in his thoughts he would zone back in realizing he'd lost hours.
And that's how it happened. One day he woke up and impulsively, packed a bag and left.
He didn't know why, he didn't know how, but it just happened, and here he was, two days later, driving somewhere in Vermont, going who knows where.
As his hands made sure the car stayed in control, his line of thinking did not. It was racing, a million miles an hour. What was he doing? Where was he going? Why was he going? Would he ever come back? Did he want to go back? He didn't want to but surely such a nomadic lifestyle was unsustainable, and if he did go back what would he do? He didn't think to leave a note, he just left. Would there be bills waiting for him? Maybe he'd gotten fired and now he was in absolute debt. Was this ever a good idea? Why had he even gone? This was so pointless. He should just turn the car around and go home. Was there a point to anything? What was he-
His foot slammed on the breaks.
Hard.
He made a noise and shifted foreward, his head jerking back and snapping him out of his daze.
He blinked and took a second to recuperate. What had happened?
Then, under a yellow sign he saw the old man. Just, standing there. Watching? Waiting? He didn't reckon he'd ever find out. Rolling down his window he called out to the old one.
"Hey!"
"Hello!" the old man said, with a joyful undertone. "Thank you for stopping! I've been waiting for ages."
"I'm sorry?" the younger man replied, confused. He didn't feel threatened by any means, just taken aback. It wasn't every day an old man stopped you on an abandoned road, while you're in the middle on an existential crisis.
"I'm heading up North and I was wondering if I could ride with you." the old man said, still, complete kindness, no harm intended.
The young man caught his breath and looked at the other out of his window.
"I- yes! Yeah for sure, hop in." he nodded, nudging to the empty passenger seat. The old man smiled warmly and went to the other side, sitting down. The young man held out his hand.
"Neil. Uh- Turner."
"Neil. Nice to meet you son." the old man shook his hands, smiling again. He had these very blue eyes that stirred something deep inside Neil. The way the sun hit him, as it continued to slowly sink below the horizon, gave almost an ethereal aura to the man. He wore a worn brown hiking jacket, with a cream fishermans sweater underneath it, jeans that had definitely seen better days, and ancient hiking boots, covered with dirt and mud, and the aglets were completely worn away. He had a cane, that he held comfortably between his legs, resting his hands atop it. What made him curious though, was his sheer lack of supplies. He bore nothing, only a faded silver wristwatch and a compass that hung from the breastpocket of his coat.
"What's your name?" Neil asked, skeptical, but still not uncomfortable.
"Isn't the weather beautiful today?" the man asked softly, looking out the window, waiting to go.
"Yeah, I suppose it's nice."
"Do you appreciate the weather, son?"
"Mm..I've never really thought much about it.." Neil responded, and he turned his keys.
The engine sputtered, then failed.
On the second attempt, it sputtered a little more, then failed.
On the third go, it sputtered a bit too much for comfort, then there was a cloud of smoke, and the whole jeep started smelling awful.
Neil's heart sunk.
"No...no no no no no. Are you fucking kidding me. Anywhere but here. Literally anywhere but here." he got out and slammed the door shut. The old man followed, but he did so calmly.
Upon opening the lid, Neil was met with a friendly helping of chemicals and he stepped back, coughing.
"Son of a- great. This is just perfect. Awesome. Spectacular."
Turning heel he started walking down the road, muttering to himself.
"Are we not going?" the old man called over.
"No...the engines broken so I'll have to call a guy in the morning to come and tow us out of here."
"Okay."
"I've got some sleeping bags in the back. I hope you don't mind sleeping in cramped spaces. You can sleep on the back seats, I'll take up front."
"Okay."
"I know this probably isn't what you were hoping so I hope you weren't in any rush?"
"Okay," The man offered a content smile and Neil sighed. "If you don't mind though, I am going to have a rest, right here I think," the man said, sitting down right by the front tires. "I'm so old I can barely stand for much longer than a few minutes." He chuckled and lowered himself to the concrete. Neil offered a laugh back, though it was more confused than anything.
He was definitely a strange fellow. Neil came back and closed the lid, as it had stopped smoking. Sitting on top of it, he crossed his legs and rested his elbows on his knees, and put his chin on his fists, turning over what to do in his mind.
"You never told me your name." he remarked, looking over to the old man.
"Well you never told me what you were doing out here." the man remarked.
"I was..well I don't really know."
"Do any of us ever really know? Son, where do you work. A good lad like you must have a job. How old are you?"
"29. I work at the library."
"Are you from around here?"
"No, I'm from Michigan."
"Ah! A perfect full circle moment. I love a good full circle moment. What are you doing out here? You, a young, strong man from Michigan, up here in rural Vermont. Do tell, boy."
"I told you, I don't know."
"Of course you know. It just doesn't make sense to you. Come on, just tell me why. I don't care if it's confusing."
"I just...wanted to get away I guess."
"Away from what?"
"Everything."
"Girlfriend? Wife?"
"No, no, I just-"
"Lost a family member? You know I've been there too."
"No, it's-"
"Oh I know, it has something to do with your parents."
A wave of irritability washed over Neil. "No! Stop interrupting me! I just don't know what I'm doing with my life and you're not helping." he said shrilly, a cold looked, frozen in his eyes.
"No need to get angry, son." the man said calmly. "Take a walk. I'll stay by the car, don't worry, I won't go anywhere. It's broken you know." he chuckled at his own joke.
"I'm fine." he muttered, getting off of the car, and shoving his hands into his pockets.
The silence set in and Neil noticed the man closing his eyes and getting lost in the sheer gentleness of the atmosphere. The sun cast shadows everywhere and the scent of dead leaves and old pine filled the air. The birds chirped, and branches rustled, and the world stood at a standstill. Lost in time.
---
"Do you want some peanuts?" Neil offered pathetically. It had been almost an hour and a half and the sun was nearly gone, the sky darkening and night commencing it's tiresome journey.
"Yes please." the man said, kindly, holding out his hand. Neil poured some into his palm, crunching on a couple himself.
"I'll get some more food from the back. I hope you like soup."
"For a librarian, you're quite the survivalist." the old man remarked, watching Neil set up a small, sad fire near the side of the road.
"I did boyscouts for seven years. I'm not totally stupid."
"I never said you were."
"I-...Whatever. Hopefully we'll have this going and I can maybe make something better to eat than stale peanuts."
The old man laughed, his eyes crinkling at the corners, the blue still visible despite the lack of light.
"You're a funny young man. I remember when I was your age, I was always worried about what I was going to do, where I was going to go."
Neil listened, coaxing the fire, glancing to and from the fire and the man.
"I grew up on a farm, we had cattle and everything. It was beautiful, absolutely gorgeous. We had field and we'd play hide and seek in them for hours on end. And the sunsets? Oh! Absolutely stupendous. And then one day..." his eyes turned sad. "One day we were playing by the lake, I couldn't have been any older than 13, but we were playing by the lake in the wintertime and my brother, he..he fell through the ice..and suddenly he was gone. Just like that, no warning, no nothing, just gone and I-...I didn't know what to do with myself." he nodded, his expression sorrowful. "Son, you make sure you love unconditionally alright? You make sure you love your mother, your father, siblings, friends, girlfriends, dog, cat, fish, whatever. Just love them with all your heart, because you never know when God will take it away from you." he told Neil.
Neil couldn't do anything but nod, his heart heavy for the old man.
"I'm sorry about your brother." was all he could muster.
"Oh it's alright. It happened long ago, I still miss him sometimes, but I've learned to push through and keep going."
Getting a soup can, Neil mulled the statement over. Walking back he thought out loud.
"That's really difficult sometimes though."
"For sure! For sure, son, but it must happen for life to go on. If we don't move on, we get stuck in the past, and that's never a good thing either."
A little later, Neil dug up a few empty containers from his bag and dished out the soup. They sipped it quietly, and he noticed the silence had grown thicker.
"I don't know what I want to do with my life." he said quietly, almost strained, staring straight ahead.
"You've mentioned that."
"Well it's the truth."
"Talk to me, son."
"There's nothing to talk about. I don't-"
"What do you like to do. And don't say nothing, because you like your job, so start there."
"Yeah I mean- I like books. I love books. I love my job, because I get to be around books. Out of high school, I wanted to get into writing but it never really happened."
"Why's that?"
"I was too scared I guess?"
"Why?"
"I didn't think I could do it." he admitted out loud.
"Aha! There it is! The fatal flaw in 90 percent of all the brilliant people in the world. Insecurity. You know son, insecurity is a dangerous thing. Not the most dangerous, but it can certainly hold you back," he pointed a crooked finger at Neil. "Don't you dare, let it hold you back. Don't you dare. Understand me?"
Neil nodded silently.
"Good man. Good soup by the way. If you want my honest opinion, I think you should drop the writing and go into cooking."
Neil furrowed his brow.
"I'm just joking, son. You'll make a nice author."
The final light of day said its goodbyes and soon enough the two were plunged into darkness.
"You know if the damn car worked I could have turned on the headlights."
"Oh we don't need those blasted things." the old man says. "Look up. There's your headlights."
Doing as the old man instructed, Neil tipped his head back and was completely awestruck. More stars than he had ever seen before swarmed his vision. He couldn't stop looking because there was so much to look at, so at one point he just layed back on the road and kept staring. Neil Turner swam into the night sky allowing it to swallow him whole, and it felt like he was floating.
A few feet away, the man spoke.
"It's pretty, isn't it."
"Yeah."
"You see it like this where you live?"
"I mean you can in some places, but not where I stay." Neil's voice felt detached. He felt spaced out, lost in the abyss of stars.
"Stars are special you know. I bet you thousands of the ones you're staring at right now don't even exist. The light travelling from them takes so long to get to Earth, that by the time the light gets here, the star is already gone. Sometimes, I like to think of people in the same way."
"That doesn't make any sense." Neil said, drunk on the universe.
"Lots of things don't make sense son, that's why we're here. To make sense of the things that don't."
---
"Are you warm enough? I have another blanket in the back." he asked the old man, who was laying on the two back seats.
"Yes, I think this will do just fine, son."
"Hey, you never told me your name."
"Goodnight son."
Neil lay on the front seats and stared up at the roof. Fatigue seeped through his veins and he slowly found himself being pulled under a blanket of sleep. He didn't fight it, and let it take him to wherever he was meant to go.
---
When he woke up the old man was gone.
Nothing different, nothing gone. The blankets were exactly where they were when he'd pulled them out; tucked away neatly in his trunk. Nothing was stolen, everything still in place and in tact. There was no sign of the man having ever been there..at all. Sitting in the drivers seat, Neil frowned.
Going out on a whim, he tried starting his car.
It worked perfectly fine.
Pulling back onto the road his attention was drawn to the yellow road sign.
It told him that the road was winding up ahead.
The road was winding up ahead and he was ready to take it as it came, one day at a time.