Sincerely, Mike

05: The Place We Once Called Home

By the time Mike had left the diner and begun the walk back to his car, the sun had long since set, and a surprisingly intense chill was just settling into the air.

Burying his fists deep into the pockets of the corduroy jacket he wore and tucking his head down to avoid having his facial features be nipped at by the chilly gusts blowing through, he began to quicken his pace into a near run towards the car.

Upon reaching it, he ripped the door open and collapsed into the driver's seat, fumbling with the AC system and trying to turn the seat warmers on for a good minute before realizing that he hadn't even turned the damned thing on.

Grumbling under his breath, he turned the key, and the engine roared to life, a comforting warmth suddenly enveloping him from the bottom up.

The sound of dusty white gravel crackling underneath the tires filled Mike's ears as he pulled the car out of its parked position and put it into drive, then turning back onto the dirt road he had been on before and continuing east.

As he continued to drive, his mind wandered, eventually leaving the car and losing itself in the surrounding scenery. After a few minutes of paying close attention to the world around him, everything suddenly seemed oddly familiar, as if apart of some kind of distant childhood memory.

Curious as to where this feeling was coming from, he snapped out of his momentary trance and focused on finding other things- roadsigns, landmarks, anything- that he knew that he had seen before.

As his searching became more thorough, he soon noticed that a familiar pair of train tracks had appeared alongside the road, and that he was slowly approaching a series of rolling green hills he knew far too well.

And suddenly, like an old song slipping through the static of a broken stereo, everything came flooding back to him.

What could only be described as apprehension now making its home in the pit of his stomach, Mike leaned into the window and scanned the side of the road, eyes searching desperately for a certain street sign that he knew- or at least hoped- stood high above the spot he and Billie had once called home.

Slowing down, he suddenly caught sight of a sign, the steel beam it was perched upon catching thin beams of moonlight and projecting them back towards the sky in an eerie yet inviting way. As he neared the white sign that hovered high above him and hurried to read the faded words printed upon it, a wave of inexplicable emotion washed over him.

Christie Road.

Immediately feeling the need to step out, Mike pulled the car over right in front of the sign and climbed atop its roof, situating himself there and staring straight at the sign that had played the role of an iconic background piece in some of the best memories of his life.

Closing his eyes and taking in a huge breath of the familiar air, he disappeared into a sea of his memories, the sound of Billie's laughter and the smells of cheap booze and smoke coming off a joint filling his mind. If he tried hard enough, he could almost see a young, long-haired Billie standing in front of the sign and grinning dopily back at him, asking if he could get up on the hood of the old Ford Mike had driven back in the day to look at the stars.

The colors of Mike's youth danced before his eyes, comforting him at one moment, and then tormenting him the next.

As nice as nostalgic lapse had been, it was extremely short-lived, as the second Mike had become too entangled in the web of his memories, they were quick to betray him and serve as a reminder of how much he missed the golden days of adolescence.

Eyes suddenly popping open, Mike lurched forward and shuttered, drawing a sharp breath as he returned to reality.

Feeling as if he had just been smacked sharply in the face by cruel reality, he shied away from the familiar scene that lay before him, burying his face in his knees.