He was ten years old and took a liking to these yearly
summer vacations. His name was Frankie and it was just he, and his
parents, on the road for hours on end. They had gone to four different
states since they first started this family tradition – or affair
rather – four years ago. He remembered the first one vividly, because
it was the first time he stayed out of the house for more than a day,
experiencing the true outside world. He was different than most other
kids; he didn’t have any other siblings and he didn’t mind that at
all. He never complained to his parents that he didn’t have any
brothers or sisters to play with, and often times he found himself
immersed in his own little daydreams, as if his daydreams were his
siblings whom he could play with and relate to. At one time he
daydreamed he was on top of their rather non-sloping roof, drinking
sunny delight as the summer sun was setting. At another time he was on
the moon looking down on the Earth through his binoculars – his hands
in the shape of “O’s” around his eyes – watching different people going
about their impersonal business, while he was alone on the moon in
comforting solitude among his stars.
By early afternoon, the sky had turned a thick gray – it looked as if the sky had no upper nor horizontal boundaries and was filled with endless puffs of clouds. White lambs grazing on soft, dark patches were gentle, piercing bright grays. These subtle rays hit the ground as if they came to this world with one mission in mind, which was to save the people in it.
The family had been driving for the past three hours and the father felt a brief respite from the road was in order. “How about we stop at a rest stop? Maybe get some lunch?” asked the father addressing his wife and child. It was around one thirty in the afternoon and his eyes were on the road, looking for street signs of a rest stop.
“That’s sounds fine, honey. Frankie, help Daddy and me look for a rest stop area so we can eat lunch and take a break from the road. You’ve been driving, what, three hours straight now?” said his wife looking up at him, rubbing his neck with her left hand.
“Yeah, but it feels like a lot more,” said the father with a deep, slow sigh.
“Our break will come soon, and then we can switch; I’ll drive and you can just sit and relax.” As she looked out the window for resting areas for tourists, which undoubtedly they were – both of this state and of the Earth, she noticed the weather; it seemed to never be too far from them. “The sky looks like it’s getting darker.”
Frankie sat in the back seat of their Civic and was already looking out the window before his parents gave him notice of a pit stop. He had been watching the lines on the roads – quick white dashes against a black background. As he lifted his head to look for signs for rest stops, water droplets started to decorate the car windows and the road. He imagined how hard it would be to catch them all.
Finally they parked the car at a rest area and ran inside before they got too wet from the now pouring rain. Frankie held his parents’ hands while running a little behind their steps. The sky looked too pure for him to believe the pelting rain was coming from it, but he still accepted it as something unexplainable but hopeful. As Frankie and his parents ran past a lonesome tree, Frankie looked back and saw that everyone else in the parking lot was doing the same thing – taking a supposed refuge inside the rest stop from what Frankie concluded was just a beautiful storm.
They got inside the packed rest stop, so hot and humid. The lines for food were long and people were complaining. The humidity in there was as thick as condensed milk and heavy cream mixed together. Heat covered every body like an invisible and unnecessary blanket made out of wool. Frankie breathed in body odor and ugly smiles while brochures were folded into fans that were unsuccessfully drying off the sweat from red, saggy, and wet faces.
Frankie’s parents told him to find a seat. His mother had to use the restroom, out of which formed a long line. To order food, the people had to wait in front of a square monitor, similar to a digital clock. On the screen of this monitor read, in red, the number of the next available register that was sounded by a lady’s monotonous and impersonal voice. His father was waiting on this long line to order food, like the rest of the other two legged barbarians – or so it seemed to Frankie. “Well listen here, buddy, I’ve been waiting for almost an hour and a half, so back off,” said a man wearing a dirty white T-shirt with yellow pit stains that matched his teeth. His mean eyes were as threateningly hungry as the anger and agitation that permeated throughout the rest area. Frankie looked to his other side hoping to see a better picture. Instead he got a glimpse of hell: rolling eyes, impatience and negative minds were the make-up of the contempt that spewed from the nostrils of every devil in the house – and Frankie hated it.
He began to think that everywhere he looked he would run into something he hated, until he saw an old man sitting at a booth near the window. This man must have been in his seventies and he wore a smile that was luring and true. Frankie walked over to him.
“May I sit down, sir?”
“Go right ahead. The name’s Gabriel, but you can call me Gabe.” As Frankie took the seat across from Gabe in the booth, Gabe turned his head toward the window, folded his arms on the table and leaned on them, smiling. “You don’t get many of these storms now-a-days. No, no this one’s special.”
“How come?” asked Frankie innocently while looking out the window joining Gabe. Before Gabe could reply, Frankie quickly glanced at his father to see if it was okay for him to sit with Gabe – a total stranger (to his parents, not so seemingly to Frankie). His father smiled and waved at him and he waved back, with suspicious surprise. Frankie could not believe his father would let him sit with a stranger. His father did not even bother to ask who Gabe was! Eventually Frankie shrugged off this little shock and continued to look out the window with Gabe.
“Well, consider this kiddo; I’d much rather be out there than in here. Wouldn’t you?”
“I hate this place. I hate the people here. It’s not happy. Why aren’t they happy?”
“I’m sure they want to be happy; they just forgot how to be. Are you happy?”
“I think I am … I don’t know, maybe not – not right now anyhow.”
“Are they rubbing off on you?”
“No!” said Frankie indignantly; he did not want to present himself as something weak and vulnerable. But he was used to telling the truth and at times that cost him his personal strength, the life in him. “Yeah, a little,” he admitted, looking down at his hands on the table.
The rain was pouring even more strongly. It produced telling craters on the soil as well as constant soothing sounds when it pounded the cars in the parking lot – like incessant and lively rhythmical movements of egg shakers. As the storm progressed, lightning strikes were splatters on canvas that quickly faded away. As for the thunder, timpani drums’ solo through drum rolls ending in the clash of two cymbals. The darkening of the clouds only made the rarer brighter rays glow more luminously on the ground.
Meanwhile, inside the rest stop, the people grew louder, more obnoxious and hideous.
Suddenly, the lights flickered off. “I’m sorry people, but it looks like we have a black out right now. Just stay calm!” said one of the workers behind the cash register. The crowd’s cacophonous growls, moans and complaints intensified.
“Great! Fine, we’ll stay in the dark! No problem here!” said the same man with the tainted white T-shirt, sarcastically. His attitude seemed to be the general reception of everyone there – except that of Frankie and Gabe. After the lights went out, they observed the people, philistines, as if through binoculars with disgust. Why couldn’t the people just stay calm? After a while, one of the customers jumped on the counter where the cash registers sat broken, and pumping his fist in the air, yelled at the crowd, “We want service! We want service! We want Service! Faster, faster!” The workers pulled him down, harshly from the counter. He banged his head on the solid floor and a loud thump was heard by every ear. They thought that putting down the agitator would calm down the overbearing crowd, but soon enough, all the people started to chant what the instigator had started – including Frankie’s father and mother. Frankie looked over at them, gaping. His parents had not noticed their son watching them, utterly stunned, as if petrified. A tear slid down his face and onto the table.
Something was building inside of Frankie; it made his face grow a deep red. Hot blood rushed through the capillaries in his cheeks and anger, intense disbelief and shame possessed his heavy, small heart so strongly, too strongly. He found it hard to swallow and tears were still flowing out of his eyes – this time, at a non-stop pace, although not a sound passed out of his lips. No, there was no time to cry out loud. Gabe saw all that was escalating in Frankie. The overcast turned storm electrified Frankie’s veins and arteries and when they reached his heart he could not take it. Gabe with thinking eyes said in a low and enticing tone, “I know what you mean, I know what you’re thinking.”
“No more. No more! NO MORE!” yelled Frankie so that all the adults in the rest area looked at him in consternation. “No more! Stop it!” He slammed his fist on the table where he was sitting with Gabe and he ran out of the door, the image of his parents in a wrestling position with a worker, in the corner of his crying eyes.
He ran to the only tree outside near the parking lot. The stentorian storm was heavenly to Frankie and he climbed the tree to be near it. As he did so he heard the crack of a single lightening bolt from the sky rush toward the tree.
The last scene Frankie saw were the faces of the people of the rest stop through the window. Looking back at Frankie, they were not fighting anymore. The arguing and fighting had gone away as did Gabriel.
By early afternoon, the sky had turned a thick gray – it looked as if the sky had no upper nor horizontal boundaries and was filled with endless puffs of clouds. White lambs grazing on soft, dark patches were gentle, piercing bright grays. These subtle rays hit the ground as if they came to this world with one mission in mind, which was to save the people in it.
The family had been driving for the past three hours and the father felt a brief respite from the road was in order. “How about we stop at a rest stop? Maybe get some lunch?” asked the father addressing his wife and child. It was around one thirty in the afternoon and his eyes were on the road, looking for street signs of a rest stop.
“That’s sounds fine, honey. Frankie, help Daddy and me look for a rest stop area so we can eat lunch and take a break from the road. You’ve been driving, what, three hours straight now?” said his wife looking up at him, rubbing his neck with her left hand.
“Yeah, but it feels like a lot more,” said the father with a deep, slow sigh.
“Our break will come soon, and then we can switch; I’ll drive and you can just sit and relax.” As she looked out the window for resting areas for tourists, which undoubtedly they were – both of this state and of the Earth, she noticed the weather; it seemed to never be too far from them. “The sky looks like it’s getting darker.”
Frankie sat in the back seat of their Civic and was already looking out the window before his parents gave him notice of a pit stop. He had been watching the lines on the roads – quick white dashes against a black background. As he lifted his head to look for signs for rest stops, water droplets started to decorate the car windows and the road. He imagined how hard it would be to catch them all.
Finally they parked the car at a rest area and ran inside before they got too wet from the now pouring rain. Frankie held his parents’ hands while running a little behind their steps. The sky looked too pure for him to believe the pelting rain was coming from it, but he still accepted it as something unexplainable but hopeful. As Frankie and his parents ran past a lonesome tree, Frankie looked back and saw that everyone else in the parking lot was doing the same thing – taking a supposed refuge inside the rest stop from what Frankie concluded was just a beautiful storm.
They got inside the packed rest stop, so hot and humid. The lines for food were long and people were complaining. The humidity in there was as thick as condensed milk and heavy cream mixed together. Heat covered every body like an invisible and unnecessary blanket made out of wool. Frankie breathed in body odor and ugly smiles while brochures were folded into fans that were unsuccessfully drying off the sweat from red, saggy, and wet faces.
Frankie’s parents told him to find a seat. His mother had to use the restroom, out of which formed a long line. To order food, the people had to wait in front of a square monitor, similar to a digital clock. On the screen of this monitor read, in red, the number of the next available register that was sounded by a lady’s monotonous and impersonal voice. His father was waiting on this long line to order food, like the rest of the other two legged barbarians – or so it seemed to Frankie. “Well listen here, buddy, I’ve been waiting for almost an hour and a half, so back off,” said a man wearing a dirty white T-shirt with yellow pit stains that matched his teeth. His mean eyes were as threateningly hungry as the anger and agitation that permeated throughout the rest area. Frankie looked to his other side hoping to see a better picture. Instead he got a glimpse of hell: rolling eyes, impatience and negative minds were the make-up of the contempt that spewed from the nostrils of every devil in the house – and Frankie hated it.
He began to think that everywhere he looked he would run into something he hated, until he saw an old man sitting at a booth near the window. This man must have been in his seventies and he wore a smile that was luring and true. Frankie walked over to him.
“May I sit down, sir?”
“Go right ahead. The name’s Gabriel, but you can call me Gabe.” As Frankie took the seat across from Gabe in the booth, Gabe turned his head toward the window, folded his arms on the table and leaned on them, smiling. “You don’t get many of these storms now-a-days. No, no this one’s special.”
“How come?” asked Frankie innocently while looking out the window joining Gabe. Before Gabe could reply, Frankie quickly glanced at his father to see if it was okay for him to sit with Gabe – a total stranger (to his parents, not so seemingly to Frankie). His father smiled and waved at him and he waved back, with suspicious surprise. Frankie could not believe his father would let him sit with a stranger. His father did not even bother to ask who Gabe was! Eventually Frankie shrugged off this little shock and continued to look out the window with Gabe.
“Well, consider this kiddo; I’d much rather be out there than in here. Wouldn’t you?”
“I hate this place. I hate the people here. It’s not happy. Why aren’t they happy?”
“I’m sure they want to be happy; they just forgot how to be. Are you happy?”
“I think I am … I don’t know, maybe not – not right now anyhow.”
“Are they rubbing off on you?”
“No!” said Frankie indignantly; he did not want to present himself as something weak and vulnerable. But he was used to telling the truth and at times that cost him his personal strength, the life in him. “Yeah, a little,” he admitted, looking down at his hands on the table.
The rain was pouring even more strongly. It produced telling craters on the soil as well as constant soothing sounds when it pounded the cars in the parking lot – like incessant and lively rhythmical movements of egg shakers. As the storm progressed, lightning strikes were splatters on canvas that quickly faded away. As for the thunder, timpani drums’ solo through drum rolls ending in the clash of two cymbals. The darkening of the clouds only made the rarer brighter rays glow more luminously on the ground.
Meanwhile, inside the rest stop, the people grew louder, more obnoxious and hideous.
Suddenly, the lights flickered off. “I’m sorry people, but it looks like we have a black out right now. Just stay calm!” said one of the workers behind the cash register. The crowd’s cacophonous growls, moans and complaints intensified.
“Great! Fine, we’ll stay in the dark! No problem here!” said the same man with the tainted white T-shirt, sarcastically. His attitude seemed to be the general reception of everyone there – except that of Frankie and Gabe. After the lights went out, they observed the people, philistines, as if through binoculars with disgust. Why couldn’t the people just stay calm? After a while, one of the customers jumped on the counter where the cash registers sat broken, and pumping his fist in the air, yelled at the crowd, “We want service! We want service! We want Service! Faster, faster!” The workers pulled him down, harshly from the counter. He banged his head on the solid floor and a loud thump was heard by every ear. They thought that putting down the agitator would calm down the overbearing crowd, but soon enough, all the people started to chant what the instigator had started – including Frankie’s father and mother. Frankie looked over at them, gaping. His parents had not noticed their son watching them, utterly stunned, as if petrified. A tear slid down his face and onto the table.
Something was building inside of Frankie; it made his face grow a deep red. Hot blood rushed through the capillaries in his cheeks and anger, intense disbelief and shame possessed his heavy, small heart so strongly, too strongly. He found it hard to swallow and tears were still flowing out of his eyes – this time, at a non-stop pace, although not a sound passed out of his lips. No, there was no time to cry out loud. Gabe saw all that was escalating in Frankie. The overcast turned storm electrified Frankie’s veins and arteries and when they reached his heart he could not take it. Gabe with thinking eyes said in a low and enticing tone, “I know what you mean, I know what you’re thinking.”
“No more. No more! NO MORE!” yelled Frankie so that all the adults in the rest area looked at him in consternation. “No more! Stop it!” He slammed his fist on the table where he was sitting with Gabe and he ran out of the door, the image of his parents in a wrestling position with a worker, in the corner of his crying eyes.
He ran to the only tree outside near the parking lot. The stentorian storm was heavenly to Frankie and he climbed the tree to be near it. As he did so he heard the crack of a single lightening bolt from the sky rush toward the tree.
The last scene Frankie saw were the faces of the people of the rest stop through the window. Looking back at Frankie, they were not fighting anymore. The arguing and fighting had gone away as did Gabriel.
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