Routes

Moonlight hit the frost in a curlicue as his headlights tore through a path and pointed him on. His Pall Mall Slim was a lost warmth and the smoke in his nostrils conjured thoughts of his forgotten home. Only the mellowed dust, sun and that radio harbouring the drenched, sweet pungence of Port Royal could entice him to discharge from the days of cold.

Automobile handled by one, he scratched the stubble climbing down his face, and threw the roach out far to the ice. While the songs were original, they sounded sharp, deranged, and the chilled air brought on a thick paranoia from days past. Though the mirror proved empty, he couldn't peer through the frost that numbed his occipital lobe as his sweat chilled and the wheel he steered stuck against his palm in a pointless friction.

The car brood as a parasitic hum filled the interior that was of course lacking company, regardless of the body that peered into the front seat's back.

The cold spoiled the music but not to him. To him a contrite lifeline kept the notes dull, lights off and eroded what was the conscience of a guilty man. An aimless push was directed at the heat of his headlights, seeking for more than the cover of a leaden night.

...

Working in the sun's returned gaze a sign pointed him into what seemed like a resting appointment.

Drudgen light peeled through the edges of curtains that shook as the man followed the uninviting invitation into a front desk. Poised on a grey seat sat an older woman, hair raggamuffin, in a suit that matched her chair. She was mute, at least to the man's ears, and used a gesture signalling payment that he knew too well. Crumpled under the stress of his stonewash denim, a greenback was placed on the table, as the drab of the office laid in and announced itself on his countenance. A fan compartmentalised the light, dim, casting the flickering of it on a poster that shot life, or the reminder of it, into the man.

...

It was the mug of the air, the warmth in the colours that kept him on through the faces of those he'd never seen. His skin felt like part of the landscape but the stares told him otherwise. The tropical shirt that stuck to him helped in the calefaction process, as no breeze cooled the sweat that reminded him. A favela was all he knew and the coffee on his breath realigned his perception.

The faces of those around bore scratches and cuts; some were missing limbs and others were dead. Victims were never assumed. Death fed the cattle and fueled the trucks; the soil of this land's food bowl. No one called out. The crops grew tall and the profits remained.

And he carried a long bag that dragged across the dirt and brought up a cloud of red. The job he worked to keep the land fertile. Though as the faces and eyes seared against his, this cloud was the cause of more than the suspicion of simply his insanity - more so everyone's.

Soon accepted by the shifting of heads that now faced the ground below the twisting cloud, he wandered into a small shack, radio playing a tune he only remembered when it sung. Dragging the bag against the patched concrete, around the corner into his olive green office where a fan created the cool from nothing, he took advantage of the privacy. They usually let the soil burn and feed the animals out East but this time he let it breathe in the mixed air. Anything that grew from it was lost but still energy coursed through the roots that remained. The soil spilled over on to another man's land and so the giver took away the water and left it to the outside, nature, to take care of it. So he did and then dumped the body after he knew keeping the man in this state was torture for both of them.

The tune kept him calm. And so did the humid breeze of his fan.

...

She was a quiet girl but audacious at heart; she always knew that at some point one part of her would have to prevail. One night she would trespass and the next she trespassed in her own home. She'd never felt a love to warm her core and her days were spent measuring other days in comparison. Cold until at some point the window was opened and a wrong warmth blew in with the gust.

Never killed another, but in the heat of her parading against the system that left her empty she had made a natural enemy.

She was left in the open of a grey city sprawl, covered by one whose purpose was to plough the field and keep the crops growing in fashion. He huddled with her lifeless body in a street corner, a burning bin and the cacophony of the streets spinning his thoughts in vertigo. The tall buildings that shadowed them called him insane through the dripping reflection of their windows, hidden faces scouring.

...

The energy was strange at first when he arrived, cold; he could see in the eyes of those around him, victims.

They all strolled orderly in a mechanised effort to be different. Around them were ignored indicators of a disparaged past, and in front were stairs that made it harder to see the bottom and behind. He was used to views that affirmed the natural discomfort and spread a ubiquitous acceptance. Now complacency was the real.

...

The eventual rain of the early morning some days later helped as he held the body in his hands and placed her on the motel bed, next to a lamp that kept the room lit but invisible to the outside eye. The trailing water from the clouds above leaked into the room. The walls were blank but they spoke to him quietly, whilst he sat in the chair that peered through the shutters banging against the window as a metronome.

He sparked a cigarette, heat in the wrong territory, as he waited for nature to do its bidding.