by Angela Rednour

Created on: April 18, 2008

The Journey

Driving in the black of night on a long stretch of highway between Utah and Nevada, as was my custom for shaking off loneliness, my mind began playing tricks on me. My mother's warnings repeated over and over in my head. Remember, if you have to pull over and rest, make sure it's in a well lit area with lots of people. My mind wandered to car thieves and rapists, I consciously lifted my hand to my door and locked it.

"No one is going to break into your car and rape you going seventy five miles an hour. You're worrying over nothing"
I rolled my eyes at myself and turned the radio up. Looking to my left and right making sure I was still perfectly alone on the road, I relaxed. Then off to my right I noticed a small light way off in the distance. It was dim, not bright like that of a light shining from a business, it wasn't the deep orange color of a street lamp, but it was more like a lonely little porch light. I was curious about the light because I had made the same trip in the light of day and knew what I was driving by...at least I thought I did. There was nothing out here but mountains in the far distance and salt flats as far as the eye could see. It was a fairly boring ride as far as the visual scenes went. I thought about who might live in a house way out in the middle of no where, maybe a lonely old man with a beer belly and a long white beard that wears worn suspenders all the time over a faded flannel shirt. He isn't in shape and he is always breathing heavy, because of this his face is always bright red and he is always sweating. He probably never smiles and maybe the truckers have stories about a man who eats the road kill left behind by careless drivers. Maybe they use the story to scare possible hitchhikers to young to drive themselves out of town.
"Your imagination is really running wild now!" I said to myself, "Why on earth would a story about road kill scare a hitchhiker?"
Well maybe it's not road kill, maybe he kills hitchhikers and eats them!
"What?! That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever thought up!"
You don't want him to just be some lonely old man do you?
"Maybe I do!"
Fine, he's a lonely old man that lives out in the middle of no where, and does nothing.
"No, he does stuff."
Like what?
I turned down my radio as I contemplated this.
"Well, he has to go grocery shopping for food every now and again, and he probably sits on his front porch chewing his tobacco and watches the sunset every night."
Why does he do that?
"Because it reminds

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