Little Things. #wattys2017

d e c e m

           

                  S O N D E R

"Secret guilt is silence revealed." ~John Dryden.

        The sudden jolt sent through my body wakes me up in a split second. The car abruptly stops between in a junction. The traffic signal giving us vague directions as we drive on this lonely country highway. It's around dawn and the sun is few minutes shy from coming out and presenting its glowing glory. With a confused look, I turn towards Harold, wondering why he stopped in front of stupid traffic signal when there isn't anyone around. Talk about being a good citizen.

  "Umm... Harold, the signal isn't working. We don't need to stop." I say, stating the obvious.

"That's not why we stopped buddy." He sighed, his rough hands passing through his unkempt hair.

       I take in his emotion as he sits there, static on the driver's seat. His forehead is adorned with beads of sweat, his hands appearing clammy on the leather lined steering wheel. His mouth twitches, something I have noticed he does when he is thinking. His eyes are hard to read as he stares towards the left, as if he is longing to go and seek those lands. His eyes have a glint of something. Anxiety, panic, pain, nervousness, excitement...hope. I can't tell. Maybe he was thinking about his little thing. His haven.

"We can go there if you want to Harold." I say softly, not wanting to just startle him from his trance.

"Nah... It's fine kid. It's nothing really. Just a silly old thing." He sighs deeply as he revs the engine of his old rusty truck, his eyes, now looking straight onto the road in front of him. His eyes hold that previous emotion, but he smoothly covers all of that with his emotionless façade.

"No... It's really fine. Something you really want to see is that way. Don't not do something because of me. I don't want to hold you up man." I say, looking at him as he turns his head slightly towards me.

"Are you sure? Didn't you want to get to the city to seek your happiness and that shit?" He asked, a glint of hope now seen in his eyes.

"That can wait. This moment cannot. Now, would you want to look back to this day 30 years from now and say. 'Damn, I should have taken that goddamn left turn.'?"  I tried my best to imitate his southern accent.

His lips cracked into an amused smile.

"I don't think I'll live that long son." He chuckled slightly before looking at that road again.

The thought that I may not see him ever again after this whole venture made me feel uneasy. I know that we can't hold on to things in the past and all that, but Harold had been a great companion so far. His stories and memories are things that unfortunately I couldn't ever experience. I had a couple of good ones, but they just seemed to fade, with time. Maybe if I held onto them tighter, would things have been different?

I didn't think he was wrong either. Harold was a chain smoker, to say the least. After ever 5 miles he would pull out his cigarette lighter and box and puff on it for the next five miles. The smile that would appear on his face after he inhaled that cancer gas was almost scary. The car stank of that strong smell of tobacco, something my grandfather's house would always smell like. The thought made me feel like throwing up. The fights, the disputes, the destruction caused in that house has always been too much for me to remember. So I stuck my head out of the window and let the biting cold air to make my nose look like a cherry.

Harold's trunk looked like a cigarette store. Boxes and boxes of cigarettes lay casually in all the small compartments and in these shady looking black bags. Yeah... basically he had a suicide wish.