The flight to the little state was almost three hours, not long but it was only a quick nap away. Once she was walking off the plane, Mirai smelled the fumes of airplanes with a twinge of greenery. It was almost the smell of grass and leaves, but smelled like gas or rock -probably both- just the same. While on the flight, several people from West Virginia who pointed out her estrange accent. She didn't blame them; she thought the same thing about their accent, but she didn't say it aloud, feeling it rude to make fun of someone in their own home would be like taking your fist and punching them in the mouth.
Mirai pulled her silver, hard-shell suit case, the wheels making a low whirr sound as she wheeled it behind her, and her laptop bag slung over her shoulders. It wasn't so much a laptop bag as it was a fashion statement from American Eagle; it was made of soft, brown leather with a magnet lip. It had a couple pockets in the outside bottom corners and the lip itself was a huge pocket.
The man, RJ, said he would personally pick her up, just look for the red pickup with WILD on the windshield. He didn't say what the model of the truck was, but WILD opened up what she should be looking for.
When asked what he should be looking for, Mirai said to find he suit case, if he could find it against the gray sidewalk or even by the leather bag. She added that she had dark brown hair and would be wearing cobalt blue tennis shoes. She thought to herself that if he didn't see the shoes, it would be a fine line between an honest mistake to ignorance. Or, there was the possibility that he was color blind, but having a red truck said that he, in fact, could see just fine. Did people with color blindness even have red objects in their house knowingly? That would make things a little weird if someone ever says, "This portrait is so amazing! The rose is so red!" And the blind would respond with, "It looks all gray to me. There's just dark, darker, and darkest... Very pretty, I guess."
Mirai plucked her phone from her pocket, seeing the time just tick by three. The sun was bright, and the hills and trees gobbled up as much rays as they could, leaving behind a shadowy darkness that was almost eerie.
Perfect for a horror book.
The scent now was a mix of warmth and tree leaves from the previous fall that refused to leave; the leaves that came now added to this, and every now and then, Mirai smelled cologne or perfume of a person walking past her. The heat wasn't as cold nor as hot as she expected; it was mid-March and it was about fifty degrees. Texas would be about seventy and with the rolling plains, the sun made it seem like spring went straight into summer. There were birds chirping a song in the distance, paying no mind that their gigantic metal cousins were blasting a song that would put any screamo band to shame.
A red Chevrolet truck -crew and extended cab- with the specific phrase lined in white above the windshield came pulling up after a few minutes of drifting into imagination; the windows were tinted, refusing to let anyone see what was on the inside of this vehicle. The passenger window rolled down, showing a young man -probably not yet thirty-five- with light ginger colored hair that was styled up; his cheeks were a little thin, and even from this distance, Mirai could clearly see that this man had different sized pupils, with the left being the size of the tip of your pinky, maybe smaller, and the other close to the rim of the iris. Both were different colors, with the left a light blue, and its partner a light or medium green. His shirt was a black button up, and the tops of his jeans were dark as well but it seemed to fade to a lighter color. His attire didn't remind her of someone from West Virginia, but what was a person suppose to look like? Camouflage and a baseball cap? Mirai couldn't judge someone by the way they looked. It was much like a judging a book by its cover.
The way he spoke made her suspicions deepen. "Hey, are you Mira?" His voice had a faint British accent. It was almost like he'd been trying to push it down but letting out a tiny percent to make it subtle.
"Mir-eye and, yeah." She nodded.
"Mir-eye. Sorry." He pulled on an apologetic smile. "Robert Moorse, but everyone calls me RJ."
She gently placed her suit case in the back seat of the truck and shut the door, then proceeded to seat herself in the passenger side seat. The slight odor of polo filled the front seats. Mirai felt like this might not be anything important -everyone wears different perfumes to try and make themselves smell a bit better- but the stuff others wore reminded her of Axe. She pushed the thought of someone of doubtful origins aside. The abrupt question, "Where are you from?" would be like asking if the weather's nice up there.
The two of them started to go down the road. RJ had started to play a Willie Nelson cd, the sound of 'Always On My Mind' making her feel a little better about the cross-country journey. Almost three hours of flight, the crunched seats, and having to repeat her name four times to a passenger on the plane that wanted to make some kind of conversation.
"And I guess I never told you
I'm so happy that your mine."
YOU ARE READING
American Psycho
Mystery / Thriller"Alter boys, Altered boys, We're the thing That love destroys." When someone is lost, they're not always found by the right people. #604 in Mystery/Thriller [5/19/16]
