THOUGHTS FROM THE OVERGROWTH

I'm not sure

The car pulled into the side of the road about a hundred yards ahead.

"So what do you do for a living"?

She asked in a polite small talk manner as he settled into the waiting seat. He looked out the side window and fell into a trance from the street lamps routinely streaking past in a subdued nightlight glow.

"I don't". In a heavy tone under his breath.

She took her eye off the road and cast a glance at his shadow engulfed profile.

"What do you mean by, I don't"?

"I don't. Like I said, I don't".

"Ah, your unemployed yeah"? You a drifter"? "You high"?

It was difficult to be certain, but she was sure he managed a slight smile. But it was dark and the movement was so slight that no confirmation was attained.

"I'm not high, I'm not a drifter. I'm just out. You know, I don't do life. I'm outside".

"Sure you do, your doing it right now. Your living". She smiled out into the road ahead. A smile of affirmation. A smile of assurance. A confident gesture.

He shot back abrasively, not leaving such complacency to germinate in the early morning air between them.

"There's nothing after this you know. We're all alone. All the time. Don't you feel it"?

He added nothing else to the potential killer of optimism and let it hang stale and damp in the air between them.

"Well I suppose everyone has an opinion of their own and I guess It's a pointless question to ask. You can't be sure of such things though, as you haven't already experienced it".

He raised his arm and for a second she panicked inside thinking he was going to grab for the wheel to prove his point. But he merely reached out his finger to switch on the stereo.

It was the local news and the guy reading it was talking about a string of bizarre murders. "It's unknown whether the assailant is male or female. A motive is similarly inconclusive at the moment. It appears that the two recent homicides are linked and that the victims show some resemblance to a string of murders that have occured in nearby towns.

Detectives are"....

She switched it off and opened her window slightly. The rush of cold from the thick icy grey outside immediately changed the air between them. Clarity and a clear freshness now birthed foresight into doubt though.

"There's nobody here you know. We're born alone terrified and we die alone terrified. All the shit in-between involves nobody but yourself. You think you should care? You think anybody else cares? There's only you. There's nobody else and your nothing. No-thing is the true nature of the universe, reality, or whatever else we think is the real world".

She remained silent, only breathing in the frosty wind and staring dead ahead.

"Your wrong. Your wrong and obviously misunderstanding the point of life. And sick. Your sick. There's love, there's love and everyone and everything else. Family, what about family? Friends and lovers, they exist. They live. And if they live, you live, I live. We only have to live. Nothing matters but life. That's the meaning of life, to live".

She slammed hard on the break pedal and the drifter's head cracked into the dashboard. Powder immediately mixed up with the clear icy air between them, as the only safety bag in the car saved her from serious life threatening harm.

All was dark on the road now.

A road that dissected ancient woodland.

The car sat silent in a cloud of skid marks.

A life had left the world for now.