I see a small yellow light approaching. It's floating in mid-air, like a firefly gone still.
"That's our stop up there," Laura says.
We've been driving for the better part of two hours, like Laura said it would take to drive. Time went by instantaneously. I feel like if I turn my head around now and look back, I'd be able to see the mines still.
"We'd be nearing to another town, wouldn't we?" I ask. Normally there would be signs that tell how far other nearby cities are, but I haven't seen anything of the sort since we left.
Laura shrugs. "It doesn't really matter."
She pulls off to the side of the road, under the yellow light. It's attached to a stand that shoots up from the ground but then arches over, like a person with a hunch back. It astounds me to see just one singular light out here, providing no purpose, just to light a few metres around itself.
Nearby is a small gazebo. It's small, and I can barely make out the shape of it in the weighted darkness. I assume this is a resting area for travellers. It seems untouched, though. Does Laura and her friends just hang out here? What would they do?
The car stops rumbling, the engine shuts down and the music stops abruptly. Laura turns off the headlights and looks over at me. "Let's hop out and stretch our legs."
We hop out. I didn't realise how cold it was inside the car until I open the door. The warm night air barges in. It feels nice.
I close the door and look around me. For a second it looks like the world stops where the light ends, but after a moment I can see the landscape take shape again. The dark hills that loom at the edge of the horizon, the trees scattered out and about, and the farm-y landscape that fills in the rest of the world.
The air is completely still. It's shocking how silent everything is. I thought there would be cicadas ringing, or crickets chirping, but they don't seem to be present either. The only noise made is the sound of rocks crunching under my footsteps.
"You OK to walk for a little bit?" Laura asks. She's by the boot of the car, half of her is in it, the other half is comically dangling out. "You won't see many stars by this light here. We'll need to get away from it."
She comes out with a soft looking velvet blanket. It's a rich brown, folded multiple times over to look like a little rectangular package.
"What's that for?" I inquire.
"It's for us to lie on when we stare at the stars," Laura responds. "It's nice and soft. I've accidentally fallen asleep on it a couple of times."
"You just keep that on you?"
"With what I have been through, I've learnt to always be prepared for any possible situation. If you get hungry or thirsty, I've brought snacks and drinks as well."
I think about the food she stole from the hot box. She never ended up eating them. What did she do with it?
She closes the back door, and then presses a button on her keys to lock the car.
"Let's start walking," she beams.
We start to walk away from the car and cross the road, the other side has a farm-like landscape that stretches forever. The moon is a thumbs width away from the horizon. Hypothetically my shift should be ending in about 4 hours. I should send a text to my relief soon and tell them they can have the day off. I'm sure it'd be a message people dream about receiving.
I stop in the middle of the road and look further out in the direction we have been driving. The road just goes on and on. It goes through another town, and another. The name of the road will change, and the state the road is on will cross over the border into another. It just never ends.
YOU ARE READING
Night Shift
General Fiction"It's the same routine every night. I've done it so many times I can basically lock everything down to the very millisecond. Hell, maybe even the very nanosecond. "
