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smackenzieMarya had very strange dreams in which both her grandma and Castro with the bike appeared. Her grandma told her to take a shower and shave her legs, or at least brush her hair and put on a clean shirt, because she'd never find a girlfriend sleeping in her van and peeing in the bushes. Castro just nattered on about bikes and pigeons and cycling around the rim of a volcano on Hawaii, and Marya woke up feeling as if she'd been taking notes so she wouldn't forget his travel advice. She was also vaguely embarrassed about how much she must stink, although she hadn't been roadtripping for that long and so wasn't that far away from her last shower. She did smell like the inside of the van, though, a little airless and overcrowded. She could not wait to get somewhere that had running water. She didn't even care if it was cold water, as long as she could clean herself with it.
She kicked the sleeping bag off herself and stretched out along the bench seat before she sat up, cracked her back, and peered between the two front seats to see how Oscar was doing. He was still asleep. Well, he probably wasn't plagued with weird dreams and random worries. He was a dog, what did he have to worry about?
Marya put her shoes back on, opened the side door, and slid out of the van into the sunshine. It was sunnier than it had been yesterday, with a bright blue sky and big fluffy clouds. She might even go so far as to call the weather gorgeous. What a change from the day and night before. The landscape was still empty and she knew the presence of sun and clouds didn't also mean the presence of cheerful people, but all the same, it was going to make traveling a little less depressing. She could roll down the windows and sing along with her iPod and pretend she was on a normal roadtrip across a normal America.
She went through her new normal morning routine - walk the dog, feed and water him, use the bushes, feed and water herself, find a clean shirt and undies and struggled into them in the back seat of the van. Her watch seemed to think it was a little before nine, and for once she thought it might actually be right. The dashboard clock in the van read the same thing.
"Maybe it's not the battery," she mused. "Who knows."
She did a brief reorganization of the food in the cooler and the box behind the front seat, mostly so she could separate out the trash from the rest of it. She'd throw it out at the next gas station. Hopefully she'd also be able to get gas as the next gas station.... She wasn't sure if she should be worrying about that or not - after all, she did have the spare container of gasoline in the back of the van - so she decided not to worry. She'd jump off that bridge when she got to it. She did think about getting out the map to see how far she'd come and how much farther she had to go, but nixed that idea because she didn't want to discourage herself. Besides, if she was halfway through Missouri she was only about a hundred and twenty, hundred and fifty miles to the Oklahoma border, and Oklahoma was about halfway to California, wasn't it? She could survive another couple of days doing this. She had food, water, and toilet paper.
And she had Oscar, although so far he was mostly just companionship and not much guard dogging. She really couldn't complain, though. She didn't think she would have been able to make this trip all by herself. It was just too bad that Oscar couldn't drive.
Marya got back on the highway thinking about dogs with driver's licenses and wondering how they'd shift gears and if a deaf dog could get a license anyway, and she continued to think about random silly things for the next sixty miles. Her iPod cycled through the last playlist she'd had on last night, and she zoomed across the rest of Missouri and into Oklahoma without thinking of very much besides how much she liked the songs on this playlist and how weird Oscar would look driving her van.
She pulled off the highway somewhere in Oklahoma to find gas, but the gas stations were apparently farther from the highway than she was expecting and she ended up driving twenty minutes out of her way before she found a Texaco. All the pumps, unsurprisingly, were dead. Dammit. She could probably go another sixty or so miles, so she went on up the road for another fifteen minutes, and when no other gas stations appeared she turned around to go back to the highway. She'd take this road past the highway to see if there was any gas on the other side, and then she'd have to either fill the tank with the gas can in the back, or take her chances on the highway. She wondered idly how far she was from Oklahoma City, and what the place looked like, if it was like Pittsburgh or Columbus or if it was actually friendly.
No gas stations revealed themselves on the other side of the highway and in the process of turning around to get back on the major road, Marya got lost. She had no idea how, she just knew that somehow she missed all the signs to get back on the highway and ended up on some two-lane road in the middle of nowhere. This was very discouraging. This was actually a little scary. Marya didn't have a detailed map of Oklahoma, and if she got off the roads she could find, she was screwed.
"I don't like this," she told Oscar, who was too busy examining this new and exciting landscape to pay attention. Marya wasn't surprised. Even if he could hear her, he wouldn't answer.
Then she saw a sign - "Fresh water and hope" - with a big blue arrow pointing straight ahead. The paint looked fresh, which was weirdly encouraging. That meant it had been painted in the last few days, which meant it was aimed at people like her.
"Fresh water and hope," she repeated. "That looks good."
She followed the sign's direction for another ten minutes until she saw what looked like a driveway leading off the road, the entrance flanked by two low stone pillars. There was another handpainted sign next to one of the pillars. It said "Haven". Marya turned down the driveway and was actually surprised to find a large farmhouse at the end of it. The house had wide front porches and was painted a faded yellow, and there were a couple of picnic tables in the shade of a massive oak treee in the yard in front of it and what looked like an orchard behind it. The land was flat in every direction and Marya couldn't tell how far back the orchard went. Not all of it looked alive, though.
There were a couple of cars parked against the edge of the yard, their noses pointing towards the picnic tables, but there was no one around. As Marya parked the van and got out, the front door opened and a woman came out. She came down the front steps and down the walk and across the little bit of yard to where Marya stood next to the open van door.
"Well hello there," the woman called to Marya. "I thought I heard a vehicle." She was wearing jeans and a short-sleeve shirt with little pink flowers all over it, and she held out her hand for Marya to shake. "I'm Martha. Welcome to Haven."
"Marya," Marya said, "and that's Oscar." She gestured inside the van, where Oscar was attempting to climb across the seats to get out the open door. Marya grabbed his collar when he got close enough. "He's harmless. He's deaf, though, so you can't give him a voice command." Oscar barked at Martha, who held out her hand to him. He licked it just like she was a normal person and he was a normal dog. "I was just looking for a gas station," Marya went on, "and I just got lost."
"That's been happening a lot. It's why we put up the sign. You were lost, and now you've found. Come inside. You can bring Oscar." She turned and went back to the house. Marya grabbed Oscar's leash from the well between the front seats, snapped it on his collar, and let him clamber out of the van, and then they followed Martha into the house.
words: 1470
total words: 45,676
She kicked the sleeping bag off herself and stretched out along the bench seat before she sat up, cracked her back, and peered between the two front seats to see how Oscar was doing. He was still asleep. Well, he probably wasn't plagued with weird dreams and random worries. He was a dog, what did he have to worry about?
Marya put her shoes back on, opened the side door, and slid out of the van into the sunshine. It was sunnier than it had been yesterday, with a bright blue sky and big fluffy clouds. She might even go so far as to call the weather gorgeous. What a change from the day and night before. The landscape was still empty and she knew the presence of sun and clouds didn't also mean the presence of cheerful people, but all the same, it was going to make traveling a little less depressing. She could roll down the windows and sing along with her iPod and pretend she was on a normal roadtrip across a normal America.
She went through her new normal morning routine - walk the dog, feed and water him, use the bushes, feed and water herself, find a clean shirt and undies and struggled into them in the back seat of the van. Her watch seemed to think it was a little before nine, and for once she thought it might actually be right. The dashboard clock in the van read the same thing.
"Maybe it's not the battery," she mused. "Who knows."
She did a brief reorganization of the food in the cooler and the box behind the front seat, mostly so she could separate out the trash from the rest of it. She'd throw it out at the next gas station. Hopefully she'd also be able to get gas as the next gas station.... She wasn't sure if she should be worrying about that or not - after all, she did have the spare container of gasoline in the back of the van - so she decided not to worry. She'd jump off that bridge when she got to it. She did think about getting out the map to see how far she'd come and how much farther she had to go, but nixed that idea because she didn't want to discourage herself. Besides, if she was halfway through Missouri she was only about a hundred and twenty, hundred and fifty miles to the Oklahoma border, and Oklahoma was about halfway to California, wasn't it? She could survive another couple of days doing this. She had food, water, and toilet paper.
And she had Oscar, although so far he was mostly just companionship and not much guard dogging. She really couldn't complain, though. She didn't think she would have been able to make this trip all by herself. It was just too bad that Oscar couldn't drive.
Marya got back on the highway thinking about dogs with driver's licenses and wondering how they'd shift gears and if a deaf dog could get a license anyway, and she continued to think about random silly things for the next sixty miles. Her iPod cycled through the last playlist she'd had on last night, and she zoomed across the rest of Missouri and into Oklahoma without thinking of very much besides how much she liked the songs on this playlist and how weird Oscar would look driving her van.
She pulled off the highway somewhere in Oklahoma to find gas, but the gas stations were apparently farther from the highway than she was expecting and she ended up driving twenty minutes out of her way before she found a Texaco. All the pumps, unsurprisingly, were dead. Dammit. She could probably go another sixty or so miles, so she went on up the road for another fifteen minutes, and when no other gas stations appeared she turned around to go back to the highway. She'd take this road past the highway to see if there was any gas on the other side, and then she'd have to either fill the tank with the gas can in the back, or take her chances on the highway. She wondered idly how far she was from Oklahoma City, and what the place looked like, if it was like Pittsburgh or Columbus or if it was actually friendly.
No gas stations revealed themselves on the other side of the highway and in the process of turning around to get back on the major road, Marya got lost. She had no idea how, she just knew that somehow she missed all the signs to get back on the highway and ended up on some two-lane road in the middle of nowhere. This was very discouraging. This was actually a little scary. Marya didn't have a detailed map of Oklahoma, and if she got off the roads she could find, she was screwed.
"I don't like this," she told Oscar, who was too busy examining this new and exciting landscape to pay attention. Marya wasn't surprised. Even if he could hear her, he wouldn't answer.
Then she saw a sign - "Fresh water and hope" - with a big blue arrow pointing straight ahead. The paint looked fresh, which was weirdly encouraging. That meant it had been painted in the last few days, which meant it was aimed at people like her.
"Fresh water and hope," she repeated. "That looks good."
She followed the sign's direction for another ten minutes until she saw what looked like a driveway leading off the road, the entrance flanked by two low stone pillars. There was another handpainted sign next to one of the pillars. It said "Haven". Marya turned down the driveway and was actually surprised to find a large farmhouse at the end of it. The house had wide front porches and was painted a faded yellow, and there were a couple of picnic tables in the shade of a massive oak treee in the yard in front of it and what looked like an orchard behind it. The land was flat in every direction and Marya couldn't tell how far back the orchard went. Not all of it looked alive, though.
There were a couple of cars parked against the edge of the yard, their noses pointing towards the picnic tables, but there was no one around. As Marya parked the van and got out, the front door opened and a woman came out. She came down the front steps and down the walk and across the little bit of yard to where Marya stood next to the open van door.
"Well hello there," the woman called to Marya. "I thought I heard a vehicle." She was wearing jeans and a short-sleeve shirt with little pink flowers all over it, and she held out her hand for Marya to shake. "I'm Martha. Welcome to Haven."
"Marya," Marya said, "and that's Oscar." She gestured inside the van, where Oscar was attempting to climb across the seats to get out the open door. Marya grabbed his collar when he got close enough. "He's harmless. He's deaf, though, so you can't give him a voice command." Oscar barked at Martha, who held out her hand to him. He licked it just like she was a normal person and he was a normal dog. "I was just looking for a gas station," Marya went on, "and I just got lost."
"That's been happening a lot. It's why we put up the sign. You were lost, and now you've found. Come inside. You can bring Oscar." She turned and went back to the house. Marya grabbed Oscar's leash from the well between the front seats, snapped it on his collar, and let him clamber out of the van, and then they followed Martha into the house.
words: 1470
total words: 45,676
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Date: 2007-11-28 07:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-29 05:00 am (UTC)