Pit Stop

“I tell you, this is a nowhere, nothing town people spend their whole lives trying to escape from, but never do.”

“Good. Let us be lost then, and stay lost, and be nothing to anyone until we mean something to everyone.”

Pit Stop

By: Divinity Sykes

There was a sharp knock on the glass front doors which pressed pause on all of their doings. The sign on the door has read, “Closed for Renovation,” for months, and though it is faded, it is not so hard to read. But this young woman on the other side had rushed out of her car, forgetting to turn it off, and was dancing impatiently from foot to foot outside. The sign, to her, was of little consequence.

There were three working people, and one slumbering man, cleaning the inside of the gas station for the final time before its grand re-opening. Not much had happened in the way of renovation that was obvious at first glance except that the shattered windows had been replaced, the shelves had been repaired and restocked, and the blood had been mopped up off the floor.

            The three busy workers shared a conversational silence, as the knocking on the front door grew louder. The young man behind the counter with lime green eyes nodded his head at an Indian woman stocking shelves with a braid that swung down to her bare feet, “Go ahead and let her in, Luna,” He ordered.   

            Her black-haired friend, Pleiades, pushed his coke bottle rimmed glasses further up his nose, and started sweeping between the rows of shelves and the back freezers again. Luna shrugged and set her cans down on the floor. She had been working all week to fully stock the place, and carried a certain pride on her thin brown shoulders to be surrounded by all these foreign goods. She skipped to the door, her casual white and blue embroidered lehenga skirt flying up in every direction around her. She wore a black bindi on her forehead between her eyes, and was a beautiful sight to behold. The woman dancing outside the door stopped to stare distractedly when Luna let her in.

            “Can I help you?” Luna giggled, flattered by the attention.

            As if woken from a trance, the woman was suddenly twitchy again. “Oh, thank you!” She threw her freckled arms around Luna, who was a half foot taller, in a grateful embrace. She started chattering incessantly at both Luna, and the man with green eyes who watched her from behind the counter. “I’ve been driving forever, going home to see my family, and there isn’t a rest stop for miles!” She pulled away, too distracted to be embarrassed, “But, anyway, may I please use your restroom?”

            Rather than answer herself, Luna cast a glance towards the gentleman behind the counter, who was meticulously dusting the cash register. His brown beard was waxed at sharp angles, and his fingernails were kept short and perfectly rounded.

            He pointed towards the back-left corner, beside the back row of freezers, and past Luna’s spontaneously organized shelves chock full of delicious treats and household necessities, “Back there, ma’am. Turn out the lights when you’re done.”

            At that moment, the freckled stranger began to feel nervous. She was beginning to notice a vacuum of emotion in here- not that their voices were monotoned, but the only one making facial expressions was Luna. In a nigh cultish way, these people seemed to be sharing whole conversations with one another without opening their mouths. She started to reconsider finding a nice tree to go near back outside where the atmosphere wasn’t so flat, but she decided to just be quick instead.

            She disappeared to the back, keeping her shoulders and head down to make herself seem small and insignificant to them, and glancing over her shoulder from time to time.

            Done sweeping, Pleiades’ sneakered feet squeaked against the waxed vinyl as he returned the cleaning supplies to the front closet. He passed the sleeping man, propped back in a wooden chair too small for his enormous body, and kicked his heavy foot as he passed. The big man, eyes still closed, sunk further into his seat with a cavernous yawn, yet said nothing.

            Reemerging from the closet with a shredded rag and some window cleaner, Pleiades passed Kyle, saying in an even-tone, “I trust you have a plan in case she asks to buy something.”

            “Good,” Was Kyle’s remark, “then your trust is not misplaced.” At which point he tossed the door key to Luna, who stood at the entrance gazing out at the early morning sunrise. Glad to be here, and alive, and with these new people who withstood her brilliant energy patiently.

She caught the key, fingering the blue bird feather she had taken the liberty to attach to it last week. Her braid swished like a pendulum as she looked up to him in shock, her mouth rounded in an anticipatory O shape.

“Go ahead and flip the sign, Luna. We are as ready as we’ll ever be.”

Without making too much noise, Luna danced in eager, bare footed circles to no music except the chaotic, off beat rhythm in her head.

The Shop resumed its last minute cleaning efforts with a contagious air of excitement at the prospect of its first customers. It wasn’t long after Luna flipped the sign that the freckled stranger emerged, relieved, from the back of the store. She felt visibly more relieved, and as a result, slightly more talkative. She had the sneaking suspicion that maybe she was just being paranoid about this place. These people proved friendly enough, after all, she would politely return the courtesy.

            “Well,” Shrugged the traveler, eyeing the well-kempt, handsomely dressed green-eyed man behind the counter, as he seemed to be the only one there willing to speak anyway, “I’d buy something but it looks like you guys are all out.” She turned towards the aisles, throwing her arms up, taking them with her in a small, tight circle as though she were scanning the place. Her eyes skipped over the colorful cans Luna had just finished stacking, along with endless rows of boxes, packages, and bins full of items wrapped in wrappers in languages she couldn’t read.

            Kyle committed to a short courtesy laugh to accompany her ironic one. The others did a good job of ignoring her blind ignorance for what it was, and of acting like they didn’t just want her to leave.

            “We are under renovation,” He reminded her smoothly. “But feel free to come back in a month or two.”

            The answer was satisfying enough, so she thanked him once more. “I’m so grateful, thank you. I probably ought to head out now, my parents were expecting me an hour ago, and there is no cell service out here.”

            In no time she had driven several barren, dusty miles out of the foothills of the Tennessee mountain range, forgetting the shoddy little service station tucked away in a stand of soaring pine trees that could be confused with any other, on a long-forgotten side road miles off the interstate. On an attraction-less exit road with no sign and no indication it was anything more substantial than the desperate mirage of a sleep deprived traveler on her way to better places.

© 2020 A.K.