Night Ride

Night slid past the windows outside. Tree trunks beat a staccato pattern against the occasional flash of a streetlight or the burst and roar of another car passing in the opposite direction. The driver had long ago turned off the radio and, before even that, established his complete indifference to his passenger’s presence. The man in the back was left with nothing to do but watch the scenery in silence and count the street signs he could not read. Soon even this distraction was gone, and shortly after so were the street lights. They encountered no further cars. The passenger’s world shrank to the interior of the car and the globe of light projected by the car’s headlights. To the sides of the car, he was aware of the rushing mass of trees squeezing tighter and tighter like the press of rock in a mountain tunnel or the narrowing crack of a river canyon. The whir of pavement became the hiss of gravel but the passenger guessed, correctly, that this did not signify an end to the journey. That would not be arriving for quite some time.