Audrey Rose – Alone

By: Dagny McKinley

Audrey Rose wandered down Interstate 15 towards Los Angeles. The roads were quiet that day. She started out in her red leather pants and faux fur vest but no one stopped to give her a ride. She changed into her sparkly skirt and white tank top but no one stopped to give her a ride. She let her bare feet soak up the heat from the asphalt before she realized it was Thanksgiving. And still no one stopped to give her a ride.

The road seemed endless. The sun had no words, the sand beside her had no words. The trash aligning the road had stories but they had been eaten. Thoughts flowed through Audrey Rose’s head but she already knew the tales they had to tell. Images floated up in front of her; her husband Mitch, dark forests covered with pine needles, the first day of ski season. Audrey Rose blinked them away. She was here, now, on a road to find her destiny and for the first time in her life, Audrey Rose felt alone. Completely alone.

She tried hugging herself to cheer herself up, but her hands didn’t feel like squeezing, so she gave up. She counted her footsteps, inhaled exhaust of passing trucks. Hours passed, the sun unfurled then curled back into itself. Audrey Rose’s feet led the way for her, off the road onto the sand. Grains shifted for her, imprinted her steps, her weight, held her for a moment before blowing into other patterns. The sky died and left Audrey Rose in the dark.

Audrey Rose lay down away from the noise of traffic. The sand wove around her silently. She looked to the stars but they were silent. The wind blew past carrying millions of stories on its breath, words jumbled, non-sensical. The last waves of heat released from the earth below her, cooling around her, everything cooling. She opened her suitcase and took out a blanket her grandmother had knitted long ago, before her grandmother’s voice was carried on the wind. Everything seemed to be carried away, blurred away.

Hello Audrey Rose called but there was no response. I am alone Audrey Rose whispered. Eyes closed. Audrey Rose saw her self standing on a bluff, the wind buffeting her. Her skirt pulled from her body, her shirt ripped to shreds. Hair tangled into knots. Eyes watered. Watered. Eyes flowed. Eyes flooded. Stories screamed to her; unanswered cry. And her eyes drowned. She could see no more.

Audrey Rose awoke to an ant. A single black ant crawling through the gap between her big and second toe. She invited the ant to breakfast, fed it a crumb of a memory, then stood, brushed the damp sand off her cheeks and started walking.