Outback

A crisp night, clipped and polished. A lonely café, staring loneliness in the face; tumbleweed tumbling about, not a breath to be seen. The wind, the great romantic, whistled a lullaby to my friend and I. 

“Ah,” exhales richly Lionel Lav, displaying his vast leaning jaw to the world, “we have talked much, Jar.” 

“Indeed we have,” I affirm, “of things that are great - the men, the women, the children. And all in between that crumbles.”

“Aye, and let it not be forgotten how my country was crucial to the war’s outcome.” With a shake of his head he taps his chest proudly; at heart he is a Serb, though what that means he knows not himself. I look at the time and swear. 

“Already ‘tis nearing one, and my abode shall accept no excuses for my lateness. My friend, I must go,” say I, rising from my chair, blotches of blank already dancing before my eyes. But Lionel refuses to let go without a fight, leering dangerously. 

“Stay,” he implores, stretching his legs wide and flexing his groin to the moonlight, “let us discuss the Tolstoyan movement, and compare it to the rise of Albion.” I am not to be convinced, so he sighs and decides: “I will accompany you thus. I cannot let you leave as a guest, amid this crowded night,” though it is not his café, though it is deserted. 

The car suffers upon having to squeeze in one soul; with two, it whimpers and shakes and weeps, refusing to go on. Like the Serb he is, Lionel roars and beats the car’s hump with his leathery plate hand, murmuring obscenities and threats to the blushing nude wind. 

“Lionel, it is a car. Leave it alone. ” My friend smirks and points out that I have forgotten to put in the car keys. Turning scarlet, I decided then to listen to my friend’s prevailing wisdom more often. 

The café is a good fifteen minutes from my abode; it is surrounded by wilderness, a blank desert that creeps over the ground’s canvas. The liquid sky offers no compassion to my stargazing wishes, veiling its lips behind clouds of black; but to my friend the Serb it matters not, so long as we are together. 

“Jar,” he purses his lips and straightens for the umpteenth time his immaculate mane, “let us take the longer route whenever we find one.” So whenever I finally arrived home, it would be later still than planned; yet, far from eager to provoke a fight with this gnashing monstrous beast, I drove on. 

The car mutters and splutters along the beaten road; its tyres squeals with a girlish delight upon discovering the exotic layers of concrete and earth, threatening more than once to annul our journey in order to explore newfound delights and pleasures. 

“Jar,” Lionel smiles at the simplicity of my name, and the majesty of his, “do you mind if I smoke?” I do, but without waiting for an answer he dives his stubby finger into a cigarette packet. Before long an aura of smoke enshrouds his handsome chiseled face, the ultimate epitome of masculinity. 

The road splits into two meagre halves. One leads to the right, where already a bubble of homes could be seen from afar. The other leads to the left, a butter blue nocturne of naught. Already in my ear I hear a muttering, presumably that of Lionel’s, endeavouring me to go to the left with a pauper’s plea.

“Alright, if you insist,” I declare whilst simultaneously he proclaims, “That sounds like a good idea.” Bemused, we look at each other, and after a pregnant pause, laugh; I wheeze and wheeze like a rusty jar being opened, and he offers to the world nothing but a sharp bitter bark. 

We continue. The road sinks into nothingness, and the car struggles against this savage concoction of rock and dust; it cackles, it ululates, but I grip the steering wheel tighter. Steady, I whisper, steady, my darling girl, stroking it forevermore. 

I notice my friend has stopped smoking; his head is cocked to the sky, his mouth slightly open; surely, he is asleep, which is how I like him best. The car grumbles a warning; we are heading into deepening darkness, yet the Serb is the one with a map in his pocket. I dare not wake Lionel to face his wrath. 

“Ahead,” I think, “will be found a way. Ahead is like north - almost.” I calculate there’s a minimal chance we’re going north, and that we’re willingly heading away from the hubbub of civilisation, towards a place alighted only by the car’s stuttering headlights. Fireflies wink about.

Trees seem to howl before me, their trunks elongated and sickly; their branches stroke the roof, leaves whistling through the windows. The path is interrupted by their spreading roots; I grip the wheel tighter, and decide to turn back. My eyes flicker to Lionel; he grumbles and turns in his sleep, a drop of drool already drying on his seatbelt. 

I try to find an area wide and flat enough where I can do the necessary manoeuvre to head back home. It may wake Lionel; but it is his fault we have ventured out this far. To my relief, I spot what looks like a meadow up ahead. The car tiptoes ever closer to the grass. 

“Jar,” I scream and hit my head on the roof, for I had thought my friend asleep, “do you see someone over there?” Trained long ago to his illustrious lack of apology, I train my eyes upon a distinct figure cutting through the shadows and illuminating weak starlight; a tall, hunched, shrivelled person. They haven’t noticed us yet, but Lionel voices my thoughts as he whispers, “Should we see who is it?” My head stiffly nods of its own accord, and a bead of sweat lands crisply on my knee. 

We drive closer and closer, yet the figure doesn’t look at us. Despite the distance, I find it hard to map any identifiable features; a skeleton wrapped in clothing and skin, almost. With each breath we sing a melody of terror, tuned finely to the ear.

We pull up to the figure. 

There’s a slight moment as our eyes dance about the sight before us; we exchange a thousand words in the blanket of silence. We stare at the person, yet cannot muster the weakest of responses. When seeking to find a pair of eyes, I find velvet skin - when trying to find a mouth to speak to, I find velvet skin; when pleading for mercy, exhorting for pity, I find only a liquid cocoon of blood, enveloped – once more – by the velvet skin. It is bald, it is grotesque - it is inhumane, with its leering long neck and bareback shoulders. 

Though we quiver in terror, or perhaps delight, the window is pulled down; and a rush of sweet crisp air flows through the car. We hear rattled breathing, coming from nowhere - and, though it happens ever so slowly, we watch its shoulder tense, the muscles working and writhing, an arm pulled from an abyss of black; its skin polished and crystalline, before long revealing an army of paper-thin fingers, each one a miniature serpent seeking to consume its victim. Only when Lionel screams do I realise that the victims are us. 

I slam the gas pedal and hear a cacophony of broken glass - the windscreen has shattered into a carnival of smoke. The car, awakened from its heavy slumber, pulls itself forward, flying through the air like the steed of a valkyrie. Our faces, etched with insane blends of steel and fear, finally escape their funeral moulding as the car lands in a bog with a heavy, life-shattering squeal - and as we regain consciousness, looking back at where we were moments ago, we realise that the figure is no longer there, though my ears vibrate with the rush of violent footsteps. The car shrugs innocently as it is pulled further and further into the mud.

We cannot muster the strength to utter but a word; only Lionel, his face a gelid tomb, points reluctantly to God’s own messenger, smiling innocently before us. It seems we have run out of gas.