charcoal

"We turned twenty and everything went dark"

It was September when you told me, you would be going away for University. Some fancy college up North. I tried looking up their website but when I was greeted with rows and rows of teeth that belonged to people way happier and wealthier than me, I closed the tab and decided that it was up to you to pick your own future path. I began to search my backpack for my car keys and while digging through all of the items -some belonging to you and and some to me- I was again painfully struck by the memory of you. Not anything in specific. Just the feeling that you gave me when you were in the same apartment as me. Your faint smell wafting towards me when I was sat in the living room while you were painting in the kitchen. It felt like being covered in a veil of translucent and softly colored silk when indulging in that aroma. Finally, I managed to retrieve the keys and promptly stood up from my worn-out office chair. When I put the car key into the ignition, the engine started to fire up against the cold autumn temperatures. I let out a small sigh of relief since you can never utterly rely on cars that are old enough to be your oldest sibling. Avoiding the potholes in our driveway, I steered my sun-faded burgundy-colored Volvo towards the Country Road leading West.

 If you were next to me in the passenger seat, you would have known exactly where I was heading. We took this route not short of a thousand times because it was the way that led us to the only gas station near our village that sold the brand of cigarettes you adored the most. While speeding up on the dead straight road, I rolled down the driver's side window and soaked in the autumn air that now had that crisp undertone to it, that predicted for the merciless months of winter to come soon. The stereo, that has not worked since I pulled the car from this dusty barn next town, gargled nondescript as I once again turned one of the knobs in an attempt to catch a radio station. This turning of the knobs has become some sort of ritual for me. That sort of ritual, whose outcome is pre-determined and always the same, yet you still go on with it, with the hope that some greater cosmic entity will show mercy. Mercy in the form of country music that was already outdated when the station would announce it as a "brand new track". Just something to drown out the thoughts that seem to keep hitting the back of my head like a hailstorm that smashes the windows of a Greenhouse, whenever I am forced to embed my mind into the now and here, so I can focus on basic tasks like "not steering my car into a roadside ditch while going a hundred miles an hour".

 As I pulled up to the pump, I raised my left hand well beyond the roof of my car as to salute the clerk behind the counter who I knew was watching the traffic from his little booth because there was nothing else to do in this remote and godforsaken location. The smell of gasoline hit my nostrils and stopped me from dissociating. Without even paying attention I had unscrewed the cap guarding my fuel tank and inserted the nozzle that was now releasing a steady stream of gas into my Volvo. I stopped as soon as I heard the *click* and with my index and middle finger I managed to fetch a crumbled up twenty dollar note from the pockets of my carpenter jeans. After unfolding and straightening the note, I stepped inside the run-down interior of the gas station. The automatic door emitted a sound of suffering that seemed to match the overall atmosphere of the scarcely lit corridors that were stuffed with cheap beer and chips with flavors that have not been popular since the Eighties - the decade that probably also marked the golden age of countryside gas stations. The clerk working today was a tired-looking blonde boy in his early twenties. I recognized him immediately as one of my former classmates from High School. Just like me, he seemed to have trashed his ambitions of moving to a place that feels like it actually has a soul. He looked up from his phone and his eyes lit up immediately as he saw me walking in. This unexpectedly cheerful acknowledgment of my presence was probably given due to the fact that during this time of the year, customers are in short supply and NOT because he thought that me being dressed in oversized workwear that's covered in paint marks was a sight for sore eyes. After exchanging a few words, I told him to grab me your cigarettes as well as the cheapest lighter he could sell me. He handed me both the carton and a cheap-looking light blue lighter that had the logo as well as the full address of the gas station printed onto it. Subconsciously my thumb traced the raised letters of the cigarette brand name on the front of the carton, as if I was trying to read it in Braille. I drove my car up a small incline that was located directly behind the gas station. I got up from my seat and zipped shut my jacket. Using the door sill of my car as a ladder, I got onto its roof where I could sit rather comfortably and watch the nearby lake that is enclosed by mighty pine trees that seem to swallow all of the last few remaining rays of light that the sun decided to provide us with this autumn. I removed the plastic from the cigarettes, put one in my mouth, and on the third *click* I managed to ignite it with the sorry excuse of a lighter.

I know I promised you I would quit smoking once we were out of High School -because of the estrogen and stuff...- but I seem to find some sort of consolation in clinging onto the things that made us...us. I am not quite sure why I am sitting here, writing this stupid letter to you, in which I am telling you the sob story that my life has become since you and all the others have left. I guess that I want you to know that I treasure the memories of us in my heart and without you, I would not be here. And by >here< I am not talking about this ghost town, I mean like generally being alive. I hope that you and I both will find our purpose in life, whatever it may be. I was lost, then found, and now I am adrift in what feels like an ocean of different currents that are all trying to pull me underwater and smash me against the sharp rocks that are lined up at the coast. Farewell, my dear, I am certain we will speak again once I have things sorted out for me. After all, I promised you to be your Final Girl.