My Sides

Sam Kolle

6-18-11

Two Worlds

            Deep in the harsh green woods of North Carolina, there is a perfect, uninterrupted strip of asphalt cutting through the mountains and over white rapids. A spotless ribbon of the modern world, technology was tearing across the landscape set so randomly and so perfectly across the damp, cold state. One spec of a car shot across the winding road.

Chris Landerston rode quickly but silently from his dad’s house in Mentreno to Grenton to see his mom. He gripped feverishly and angrily at the leather steering wheel trapped between his sweaty fingers. His head was outrunning the car, buzzing with thoughts of his people. How could such a blessed life leave such wreckage and havoc? He breathed with such strain that he had to stop to catch his breath every couple of miles. Inside of the car was a cool 60 degrees, with calming jazz pumping calmingly through the car’s speakers, hidden by leather, not t to blemish the beautifully plain brown interior. Chris sat, expressionless in the driver’s seat with a thin undershirt and grey khakis. His shoes and socks were tossed carelessly onto the passenger seat, radiating an odor unmatched by anything in the rest of the state. Under the monotonous blur of the jazz, there were two faint but distinct sounds. One was the dull hum of the motor, struggling on at immense speeds on little gas. The other was the inner workings of Chris’s mind. He was working feverously to solve a puzzle that he knew he could not.

Just a few miles ahead of him was the Ying. George was walking along in his ragged overcoat. George was happy. The air was cold but clear, and his stomach was filled by his leftover pork ‘n beans. Nearly skipping, he was drunk on life, and happy to be a part of the world’s sick play. Every mile George would stop to meditate, peering over a mountainside from the top, or up to the top from a deep valley. He was at peace with himself in his own ragged poverty. He was happy with the clothes on his back and the sack on his clothes. He grew up like any other middle class American, eventually outspeeding his peers, expected to go on to the ivy league school, but instead he went to the roads to find a job in the middle of the country. When he got there, he found out that it wasn’t what he was meant to be doing. Instead, he kept going. He would pick up odd jobs on his way to nowhere, but it was getting harder and harder for a college dropout to keep on his own road. He knew all of the tricks, and always had enough cash in his wallet for a bottle of whiskey. He picked up friends and dropped them at a moments notice, but he was happy. He kept a ragged journal in his pack and would stop to jot down notes like “the sky is pretty tonight”. As soon as he could get off a sentence, he would be off again, “for it is better to watch than to record”, he said.

Just as the temperature dropped and the sky grew darker, Chris slowed to a stop in front of a bitter looking failure walking along the streets. Just as George was getting ready to set up camp for the night, a shiny new Bentley slowed to a stop in front of him with some stuck up rich kid alone at the wheel.

“Got gas money?” asked Chris.

“Do ya need it?” shot back George.

They took a second to examine each other. Both around twenty, one was smudged with dirt and grime, the other with sweat and scratches. They quickly both set out into the night in the car, a streak of light cast against the darkness of the cold, inky night air.