It's You. It's Always Been You.

Dead Ends

Katta stared past the road, blinking. It was dead. There were dead leaves and dead trees and dirt and cracked pavement. There was every shade of neutrals and no shades of anything else. It looked awful.

This is it, she thought. This is seriously it. 

Katta knew that the view was terrible. She knew that it was tacky and awful, and if anyone would have asked her to look at it in any other circumstance she would have given it a quick glance, but dismissed it just as quickly. 

But this was this specific circumstance, and so that didn't matter as much.

Katta had gone on a journey. It was one of those journeys that you feel in your soul you have to go on-- like it was some kind of a destiny for you. Like it was divinely inspired. The kind where you set out fearless-- like nothing can stop you and you can take on the world-- the kind where you don't know where you're going, but you don't care. When you feel so predestined, anywhere seems like a fine place to end up, because in your head "anywhere" is beautiful.

Katta's trip was always meant to be about the journey, and not the destination-- but this was only something Katta believed when she saw a beautiful willow on the side of the road, or a particularly breathtaking waterfall or patch of yellow aspen trees.

She didn't have a map. More like a compass, but we'll call that "intuition". 

There were a lot of dead ends, or things that looked like dead ends but weren't. It was hard to tell the difference. But regardless, there were a lot of them, and it sucked to get through. It was hard to get through, but she was a professional at getting through dead ends.

And now, there was another dead end. It seemed wrong to throw away so much effort, and so much pushing and so much introspection and burnt tires and tears and leaking coolant and fiery tempers-- to the dogs, so to speak.

But in her gut, Katta knew it. She knew this, this, was it.

This was a dead end, and she had no control over moving past it.

It felt unfair, that all her effort resulted in a canvas painted with brown. But, she reminded herself, she didn't paint the canvas. She didn't kill the trees. Heavens, who even knows who did that. Not Katta. Not her car. Probably God, but He wasn't telling at the moment.

There was no reason to stay. 

But Katta stayed.

Katta stayed until the light left the brown scene and the desert turned frozen. She stayed until frostbite began to eat at her fingers. She stayed as misshapen snowflakes hit her eyelashes and made them turn white. But she liked snowflakes, she reminded herself. And the fact that they were misshapen, didn't matter, so she tried to forget it. 

Katta stayed and watched the sun rise again, and she thought that maybe the dead, wilting and grotesque willow tree was beautiful, perhaps in an abstract kind of way when the light was hitting it just right.

Katta stared at the tree until eventually, by some insane coincidence, it caught fire. And then she stared at the ashes.

It was many days before Katta realized that she wasn't standing in the brown desert anymore. She was standing in a pile of ashes. Her skin was stained with black and white and grey blotches. She wasn't even recognizable.

But even God knew that Katta had been there too long. Her car couldn't run anymore, surely.

As the wind began to carry the ashes away into the depths of the sky, Katta felt something in her stir. The feeling of moving. The feeling of predestination. The feeling of I need to go.

But her car. It couldn't run.

Katta walked towards it. She slid her key in the ignition. She turned it. She watched the dial go up.

The tank. It was full.

Katta put her hand on the gear shift. She stared at the desert. It was pulling her back to it, with its nonexistant fingers and empty arms.

Katta shifted into reverse. 

She let go of the brakes.

She stared at the residue left from the ashes-- at a brown world turned grey and black and white-- and she smiled.

She hit the gas, slowly. 

Once Katta was on the road, she felt right. She felt as if there was a new journey, but not destination. 

Then Katta pulled over, and Katta cried.