Hitcher

The road is long, continental in length but the width of only two small cars or one fuck-off truck. This may be the longest, thinnest thing in the world. Perhaps not. China has the wall, which I doubt offers room for a family car as 10 tonnes of rumbling steel and rubber come at you head on. Hadrian's must be shorter than this road and far from a rival to the space-visible Great one. So we can say with some confidence that of all the lengthy items this planet offer up, this is among them.

It was with such a thought that I tried to break the ice, spark up a bit of mileage killing conversation, anything to stop this fucker grinding his teeth and slapping his fat dry tongue across his lips. Long road this one! Ever been overseas? China perhaps? His eyes flicked momentarily at me, or at least away from the fly splattered windscreen long enough to qualify as a response. Never left this Big Island, eh?

The rapture of communication was long dead in this cross-continental soul, he was a machine of motion hunched encouragingly over the wheel, rocking with the revolutions as the tail of the road slipped between the mammoth tyres. His eyes red, knuckles white he was immune to my banter, focused entirely on the impossible next mile, on completion and ends that few us are so commonly given. Is this the longest thing in the world? Nothing.

The window drew me away from this soliloquy and in the passing trees and burnt bush I found a certain serenity. Strong lines formed where sight gave into speed, brown and black beneath the solid blue, occasional breaks for a train line or the long road to a farm. Letter boxes so far removed from the subject of their contents that they seem like communal collection points for random thoughts and ideas. I may ask this crazed carrier to stop so I can write some thoughts and leave them for an equally strange passerby. Dir Sir, you have obviously noticed these stranded mailboxes, driven miles way from home toward this dusty highway and, a soul striving for communication like myself, have deemed it fit for a letter.

If I believed for a second that this piston driven pilot would dare apply the hissing air brakes then I may have asked. In fact, I think I was going to ask when from among the blurred lines of flora and earth came a form unrecognised but somehow complete, not broken by our speed into lateral lines of colour but whole and closer than the liquid backdrop.

A camel, the desert dwelling beast of burden that graces the sands of the most exotic and ancient lands, running along side this filthy road train, straining, at least it seems, to keep abreast of the cab and trying, unless the heat and the silence had twisted my senses, to get our attention.

Lowering the window I leaned into the rush of dusty air and waved an acknowledgment at the ruminant mammal but it seemed only more frantic to draw attenion to itself. I pointed to the trucks immense trailor, to the burning wheels and to myself, innocently, but the creature widened its eyes and shook its matted head causing the humps on its back to swing vigoursly to and fro, it was obviously not impressed.

Not until I leaned back, confused and a little scared did I see the camel smile, a wide grin full of square yellow teeth and a long tongue beneath flaying lips. At the same instant my mute and long ignored driver leant across the vinyl seat and empty food wrappers that separated us, pushed me further back into my sweating seat and said, almost out of the window himself. Hello mate, is this the longest road or what?

thegooddoctor 2004