90 miles an hour down a dead end road

I’d been driving through the middle of nowhere for at least a half hour before I came to the first shit-splat excuse for a town. Nothing but potato fields on either side of the old highway; all of it buried under drifting snow. The ‘taters are on vacation this time of year. The opposing lane was mostly drifted over, with the occasional tendril reaching far enough across to send my car fishtailing on impact. No big thing, this time of year. The wind was vicious, and a fresh blizzard was just getting settled in. Up yonder I could make out the approaching town; just the ruins of an old train depot, a derelict gas station, and a few squatting houses that looked like they’d been bathed in coal smoke. If there was any life seeping out of the chimneys, it was snatched away by the wind before I could catch a glimpse. I noticed a figure walking towards me, on my side of the road, just before the town. As I got closer I realized it was a woman. As I passed her, I realized it was a beautiful woman; skin as fair as the snow itself, eyes bluer than ice. Her coat was open, and flapping furiously in the wind. She didn’t seem to notice…but she did notice me, and for one cold second we locked eyes…and then she was in my rear view mirror.

Where was she walking to? Where was she walking from? I puzzled over it for some time. There was nothing the way she was heading, I can tell you that…and there wasn’t much the way she had come either. I wonder if she’s happy, or, at least happier than me…if and why, if and why. I had half a mind to turn around and offer her a ride, out of the wind, and weather, but thought better of it and just kept on. There’s something here I can’t quite put my finger on…some cosmic symbolism too large for me to wrap my puny brain around just yet. I half suspected it would come to me while typing it out, but so far it’s just more questions. Was it a plea for mercy I saw in that young girl’s eyes? Not to me, of course, but to that whole mass of unforgiving nothing I had just come through; a glance I simply intercepted as I flew by. Or rather, was I simply seeing my own plea for mercy, reflected back at me? I’ll have to grab a six pack of beer and a bottle of wine, and think about it…

"Liquor on his breath, trouble on his mind; Lucy’s just a kid, along for the ride."