Unfamiliar backroads, twists and turns.
Lake to the right, black, massive.
Mountains ahead, the fear of the summit
Tempered by the excitement to reach the other side.
My love is behind the wheel. I am safe.
No more road. Clumps of broken dirt,
Trees blocking, the path through isn’t large enough
For the car we’re in.
Only way forward is on the lake.
Surface supports our weight, physics be damned.
My eyes searching for someone who can
Give us directions, to help us find the road again.
Neither of us are scared, we’re in this together.
Strange shack on stilts, middle of the lake.
It fits but doesn’t. Is here but not here.
Narrow beams above the water, require balance and focus
To navigate to the door.
A man, matching the shack, appears.
Pieced together from bits and bobs. Welcoming but not welcoming, here and not here.
The stranger climbs in the backseat, points a direction.
Tires hit the pavement and we’re accelerating.
No lines on the road, no lights around us.
My love’s eyes are intent, speeding us into the black.
Getting us away, not wanting to tempt fate or physics.
I turn to the backseat stranger, the shack man passenger,
With a $20 bill and an old key (to unlock what, I don’t know),
A thank you for navigating us to almost safety.
He takes them, grins an easy grin,
And throws himself out of the speeding car.
I hear the thump thump thump as his body rolls away from us.
His job, done.
We keep driving,
Passing through towns filled with oddities.
Like the triplets smoking on the side of the road,
Or the van that thinks it’s a jeep.
I wake up with the last town still in my mind.
Not the dream I wanted to have,
It was dream I needed to see.
Hints of future challenges,
Having faith to follow fantastical paths,
Trusting unlikely strangers to guide us.
In it together.
I snuggle up to my love, safe.
