Tinted

wat-er and drop-lets obscure the light

lead-ing the eye to-wards things in the night…

Alex glanced at the odd note left on his dashboard. The cardstock base supported a haphazardly taped piece of sheet music, its paper edges fraying from where it had been hastily torn. Carefully folded, as if waiting just for him to open it, Alex could only glance at the handmade note sitting on his worn leather dashboard.

In a rush, he opened the glovebox, stuffed the note inside, and locked it back to its closed position. He didn’t have time for this- not today. The tinting of his windows took far longer than Alex had expected, and he had places, important places, to be. Already, the sun had begun to drift underneath the Salem skyline, and he should have been on the road by now. With a business conference waiting for him in Olympia, Alex turned his car keys, awakening the machine from its slumber. A propensity of buttons began to glow and the levers signifying his tank level fluctuated and flailed, before finally deciding to rest at “¾”. Alex pushed a pedal, and his automobile started to trundle its way through the mechanic’s parking garage. 

“I’m not going back there,” thought Alex to himself as he veered onto the main road. One hour, sixty minutes, 3600 seconds of his life, wasted, waiting on someone else to do a simple task. He turned a knob, and a narrow display panel lit up, filling the cabin with a faint glow. After turning it once more, the car was filled with the sounds of a guitar, steady and reassuring. He tapped a finger to his phone, lighting up the screen and providing the small, dark space of his car with a little more light. He navigated to “Maps”, and loaded the pre-set route he had created for Olympia. 

“Two hours and thirty minutes to go!” his car speakers exclaimed. Alex sighed. He was already late. He’d be lucky if the conference didn’t end by the time he arrived. Flapping through creased pages, Alex pulled up the same route on his physical atlas. While Alex loved to drive, what he loved most was saving time on the road. All those pages, crinkled, underlined, written on, and bombarded with notes, helped him throughout his time driving. 15 minutes saved to Sacramento, 30 saved to Boise. However, Alex noticed in dismay that he had found no shortcuts to Olympia. The fastest way, which his navigation system had already pointed out to him, was to take Interstate 5. 

Why had he taken so long? What type of tinting took an extra hour to apply? The mechanic, Hal, as his nametag declared, had been very eccentric while applying the tint. For one, Hal would not allow Alex to view his car until the very end of the procedure. “Just part of the process, sir,” he had said. He anxiously rushed in and out of the musty garage through large sliding opaque doors, as if afraid to leave the car alone for even just a moment. At the end of their appointment, Hal, eyes slightly dilated, as if adjusting from a pitch-black environment, implored Alex to avoid looking through the windows for long periods of time. “Bad for the eyes, you know?” he stumbled. His breath was tainted with alcohol. Disgusted with the peculiar mechanic who kept him waiting for over an hour, Alex hurriedly scribbled a “5%” onto the receipt, stormed out of the mechanic’s small, dimly-lit office, and finally got into his car, whose windows were colorfully glinting like spilled gasoline. 

Now, looking through the new windows of his car, he noticed just how thick the layer of tint actually was. Alex could barely discern any color other than the monochromatic shades of blue in front of him. Sighing at the mechanic’s preposterous job, he took a sip through the green and brown cardboard-layered cup he left in the cupholder. As he’d expected, the coffee had grown room temperature after the long wait. 

“Turn right onto Interstate 5!” the navigation system excitedly exclaimed, rousing Alex from his thoughts of the mechanic. He slowly gripped and turned the leather steering wheel. The car, obeying his command, slid right, veering onto the stretch of road labeled only by a slightly bent metal sign, Interstate 5. 

***

A while later, pacified by the soft hum of the radio and the comforting taste of coffee in his mouth, Alex almost didn’t notice when the sky became black. 

Staring up at the ominous clouds through his car window, he saw the storm coming. Even through clear glass, the clouds must have been dark, but through his car’s windows, the sky looked as if someone had spilled calligraphy ink all over its precious blue. Alex could hear the sound of thunder. However, through the tinted windows, no light registered from the dense gathering of clouds. As the last of the sunset hid under the horizon, Alex could barely see the road farther than his headlights. The only light inside his small vehicle came from the radio and his phone, which was dangerously close to losing power. Alex looked ahead, his vision morphing through the tinted glass, which was beginning to catch dozens of droplets of water. Then, it began to storm.

Torrential water crashed on the car’s windshield. Fragments of reflected light danced around the car’s interior as Alex drove further, deeper into the cluster of shadows. The number of drops falling from the sky steadily increased until it seemed as if his front windshield was parked at the mouth of a waterfall. Liquid replaced air, and for a moment, Alex thought he was in the depths of an ocean. Thunder crashed, and this time, he was nearly blinded by the light exploding from the windows.

As the pure light superimposing his sight dimmed, Alex noticed the rain was beginning to slow. What was once a raging sea of water had become more of a docile sprinkle. A few more drops of water collided with his windshield, and then it all stopped.

A thick, uninviting mist hung in the air. The once inky sky had settled for a more shadowy turquoise, though, Alex thought, it should have still been dark. Dots in his vision, he could finally start to see what was in front of him. His eyes relayed information bit by bit to his consciousness. First, the charcoal-colored worn gravel of the road, followed by the bright yellow strips of tape dividing it into lanes, seemingly alight. Then, the road signs, slightly bent, shifting into more precarious positions as he drove on. What went from a slight bend of metal transformed into almost purposeful ellipses, triangles, and squares. Then, to Alex’s disbelief, the metal poles of the signs disappeared completely, leaving the faded metallic plates suspended in thin air. Grasping the short bristles of his beard in a frightened manner, Alex forced himself to keep driving. It was late. He must be seeing things. He passed a few more hovering road signs, and then, just as soon as they appeared on the long stretch of road, they vanished.

Sipping the last of his comforting coffee, Alex’s hands twitched slightly. “I must be arriving at Olympia sometime soon...”, he told himself. Glancing at the navigation system for reassurance, Alex’s eyes widened in terror. The reassuring 1 Hour, 03 Minutes Remaining that had previously been displayed was now reduced to a troubling [Calculating ETA…]. The digital map, which was once rich in color, detailing every possible highway, road, or trail, had been replaced with a black-and-white checkered grid. All of the letters and numbers directing Alex to his conference had been erased, save for a slightly hopeful [Loading Sattelite Map…]. However, as the seconds Alex waited turned to minutes, the map was no closer to appearing. Finally, to drain all of Alex’s hope of regaining his navigation, the battery reached the dreaded 0%, and the phone promptly plunged into pitch-black.

“I just need to find a landmark…” Alex kept anxiously repeating as he attempted to locate himself on the physical map. After a few long moments, he let out all of his worries in an extended sigh. All he had to do was to keep driving forward and turn onto a road labeled Burrows. All his troubles would soon be solved.

***

After continuing on the seemingly endless interstate for half an hour, Alex could not, for the life of him, locate any other roads. He wasn’t even sure if he was still on Interstate 5. It seemed as if all of the road signs disappeared. Nothing but the worn reflective yellow tape marked that the stretch of gravel was even a road. Straining his eyes to interpret the horizon, Alex finally saw the distorted silhouette of something large in the distance. Knowing it had to be the Olympia skyline, Alex floored the car forward, lurching through the uneven pavement. However, as Alex got closer and closer to the object, he soon realized it could move.

Long lanky legs stretched down from the ill-lit sky. They seemed to be made out of shadows themselves, black misty objects surrounded by wisps of smoke. The eerie silence of the interstate was now occasionally interrupted by howls, screeches, and other unsavory sounds. Smaller shadowy figures, like tumbleweeds, rushed past the car on all sides. The sky, clouds now the color of Alex’s pupils, threatened to storm once more. Nothing here felt right to Alex. Entranced by the sights around him, all he could do was glance at the bodies of smoke. With a shudder, he pulled himself free of whatever spell the interstate was putting on him and, shakily gripping the steering wheel, turned the car around. Alex didn’t care where he went anymore. He sped away.

Hands tightened on the leather circle of his steering wheel like clamps, Alex moved farther and farther away from the unnerving sight. A bead of cold sweat rolled down his forehead, threatening to veer into his left eye but turning away at the last moment, dropping onto his blazer. A low, feral noise came from the engine. Alex closed his eyes as if to unimagine what he would see when he opened them. However, as his eyelids fluttered open, his heart nearly stopped. The tank percentage lever, once at a safe ¾, had since plunged all the way to empty. Hands shaking, Alex pulled the car over to the side of the interstate as the car lulled to a complete stop, engine humming annoyedly. 

He hadn’t cried since high school, yet here he was, breaking down into tears as the technology around him, the infallible, reliable things he had trusted for years, shut down, unable to lift a finger in this moment of pure calamity. As the air conditioning switched off, the cabin grew warmer and warmer, finally forcing Alex out of his sheltered exoskeleton of a car. 

Something felt rather off about the environment around him. He could distinctly feel leaves under his boots but saw only the dried grass bordering the interstate. He still saw the monstrous figures in the distance, but all he could hear, feel, or smell was the crunching of leaves and pine trees. Alex’s head started to spin, and he decided to sit down. As his unbearable migraine intensified, his sitting turned into laying down on the invisible leafy ground. Another round of pain hit his head, and for a moment, everything went black.

***

Alex yelled. He screamed and cried like he never had before and finally opened his eyes. The sleepy black of his vision was replaced with the sight of a forest full of fiery Fall trees. Leaves littered the ground, and the distant sound of chirping birds filled his mind. Where am I? Alex thought to himself. Shakily, the man stood up and looked around. The first thing he noticed was tire tracks, interrupting the layer of fronds and leading, to his surprise, right to his car, unscathed and parked near the trunk of a large oak tree. Walking towards it, leaves crunching underneath his feet, he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the oily tinted window pane. Instantly, a series of images flashed through his mind, the mechanic, the storm, the inky black sky, the disfigured road signs, and finally, the intense, primal dread of seeing the shadowy legs of giants. 

Before he knew what he was doing, Alex grabbed a large branch laying on the forest floor and vehemently swung it towards his car in a fit of rage, knuckles whitening on the length of lumber. The glass shrieked as it flew through the crisp air. It didn’t want to leave- he knew that much. Deadwood swinging, Alex took out all of his car’s windows, one by one. 

***

Violet shards lay scattered across the forest trail. Superimposed with fiery red leaves, an unfolded note rested on the ground. Completed with seemingly arbitrary sheet music taped to a rectangular piece of worn cardstock, it sat unfolded on the ground. A warning.

Wait-ing for terror- your eyes are a-light

Turn-ing the skies into freezing twi-light