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It’s not on the map

I felt a wave of relief, floating in the wake of the moment. Unfortunately, the distance was expanding and residual energy soon gave way to the open ocean of awkward silence. The starkness was electric. Overbearingly tense in the anticipation of some sound breaking the air.

We were both vying to evaluate the surroundings where we had crashed. It was an intersection. I was overarching and stretching my neck. I kept looking as if to give the impression to my younger companion that experience meant one should fully consider what was in front of them. It was still an intersection. Thoughts drifted and turned to the machinery ground to a halt. The cross road standing still. Dumb lights that weren’t lit. Monuments to what, I wouldn’t know.

I turned to watch my young companion disappear around the corner. Slowly I set off too. Feet crunching the soft matt dust, every now and then a rock or something would force me to find my footing. My mind wasn’t on the task, wasn’t engaged. Ambivalence crippled my will. We needed to find something important and I had a feeling this wasn’t it.

Turning the corner, an exposed part of the wall presented itself cracked and broken, with a truck half embedded. It hadn’ t rusted, which meant it must have happened at some point after. For this was a definitive sign of telling the time here; the weather systems had hailed and torrented relentlessly, giving everything they had until it just ran out and there was no more weather left. Now things didn’t age and the dry still air kept things as they were. Footprints remained in their place. It could have been here since a millennia or last week. It was hard to tell. I walked up to the truck door, it’s window broken, glass littering the seat, peering in.

What was it like?

What was it like? Images went by too high and too quick to latch onto. One came into view before another drifted in front of it, slow enough to recognise each thought but fleeting all the same. Speech remained firmly out of reach. The young one waiting quickly, then remained just waiting.