The Road. Part V

Part V. Lost Soul


The diner was silent for a long moment. Nobody moved.

“You good?” I asked, my voice quieter now, less sharp.

“I’m always good,” she said, pulling her hand back into view. She’d been holding a gun, small but deadly, her fingers still curled tight around the grip. She set it down on the counter, as if it were a lighter.

I exhaled, feeling the adrenaline drain out of me all at once. “Who the hell was that?”

“Randy,” she said, lighting a cigarette with steady hands. “An old mistake that keeps showing up like a bad penny.”

“You think he’s coming back?”

She blew out a stream of smoke. “Oh, he’ll be back. Guys like him don’t know when to quit.” She looked at me then, a small, tired smile tugging at her lips. “Good thing neither do I.”

I nodded, glancing at the door like I half-expected him to walk back in.

“Hey, cowboy,” she said, and I turned back to her. “Next time you see trouble coming, maybe let it pass you by. No sense getting yourself killed for someone like me.”

“Maybe I don’t like letting trouble win,” I said.

She laughed, soft and bitter. “Well, aren’t you a hero.”

I left a crumpled ten on the counter and stepped out into the night, the door rattling shut behind me. My truck sat under the weak light, battered but reliable, the only thing I could count on to keep moving.

“Hey, lost soul.” Her voice carried behind me, sharp and unmistakable.

I turned to see her standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame like it was holding her up. The cigarette in her hand glowed faintly, a tiny ember in the dark.

“What do they call you?” she asked.

I hesitated. Names felt like weights out here, things you shed when the road got too long. But something about her made lying feel pointless. “Ari,” I said finally.

She raised an eyebrow, tilting her head. “Ari,” she repeated, testing it like a blade. “You don’t look like an Ari. You look like someone who’s been forgetting his name for a while now.”

I shrugged.

She stepped out of the doorway, her boots crunching against the gravel as she came closer. Smoke curled around her face as she flicked ash to the ground. “Where’s the road taking you, Ari?”

“Don’t know yet,” I said, glancing at the highway stretching out into the blackness. “Same as everyone else, I guess.”

Her laugh was bitter, like she’d heard that answer a hundred times before. “Same as everyone else,” she echoed. “That’s how you know you’re already lost.”

She looked at me for a long moment. Then she shook her head, almost like she was disappointed. “The road’s not gonna give you what you’re looking for.”

“Then I’ll keep looking,” I said.

She didn’t argue. She just stepped back and paused there.

“Drive safe,” she said seriously and kindly, as if she actually cared, and went back into the diner.

I climbed into the cab, the engine rumbling to life. As I pulled out of the lot, I glanced in the rearview mirror.

She stood in the doorway, framed by the flickering neon light. She didn’t move, didn’t look away. Just stood there like she belonged to that stretch of nowhere, as much a part of it as the cracked asphalt and the endless sky.

I drove on, the diner fading into the distance. Behind me, her shadow disappeared into the dark. Ahead of me, the road stretched out like it always did – indifferent and waiting.