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L I L Y
There were wisps of vapor on the coral sky where the clouds had previously been, like an accidental stroke of white across an already finished painting. A flock of birds appeared in sight, passing by like harmless pedestrians, who did not know they had just ruined the still scenery of the sky.
The street in front of their eyes was deserted. Trees lined up one side of it-trees with bright leaves that trembled as if two invisible hands were rocking them gently. On the other side of the street, abandoned cornfields stretched on ahead, seemingly for infinity.
Forward ventured a simple vehicle, a black Mercedes Benz with pulsating letters on top of it that read TAXI, and inside it sat two people.
The first was the driver - an old man with beads of sweat rolling down his flushed neck, a weird habit of squealing whenever his eyes landed on an insect and one arm dangling out of the window, a cigarette tucked between his middle and index finger.
The second person was a young girl sitting in the backseat of the car. She appeared to be in her early twenties — a pretty face decorated with a sprinkle of freckles, screened by flaming red curls that swung across her pale skin and two green eyes that were framed by some glasses that she'd forgotten to remove after reading.
There were earphones in her ears, tangled somehow in her unconquered strands of hair, and a thick novel opened in front of her lap that she'd also forgotten to close. Her eyelids kept dropping despite her determined attempts to keep them wide open and her brain was in a haze, no longer registering the lyrics of the song that was being played at the moment.
"Aah!"
The redhead jumped up from her seat, a gasp of shock falling out of her lips. The bald driver who had just squealed way louder than the previous times breathed out a sigh, fell back on his seat and gave a throaty laugh.
"Scared you, didn't I, young lady?" he said, running a hand across his hairless head. "Sorry for that. I can be a total wimp when I see an insect. You should have seen that damn bastard, one big and creepy son of a bitch that was. Jesus, I wonder where it came from! We must be near — I've been told there are plenty of trees in the resort."
The girl wasn't paying much attention to the old man's ramblings. Now that her attempts of getting some sleep had failed, she knew she couldn't zone out anymore even if she tried. She untangled the earphones from her messy hair, closed the book, removed her reading glasses and placed all objects inside her flowery bag.
"Look, we're there already," the driver said, flashing a toothy smile. "Told ya."
The girl perked up just as the taxi turned left. There it was — the resort she had been waiting to enter ever since her parents rewarded her with this vacation as a celebration for her successful completion of her second to last year of university.
