Read This Book

I just finished reading another awesome book, The Road by Cormac McCarthy. It's a post-apocalyptic story about a father and son traveling across a burnt-out USA. It's depressing heavy and disturbing, but man is it good. It's not very long (I read it in about 2 days), and it moves really quickly. I highly recommend it.

On an unrelated note, I am working on another short story. I hope to have it finished in the next week or so. Obviously I failed at this goal...

Kinda nervous about this one

OK, this is my first shot at any kind of fictional story. Pretty much I just want to see how bad it sucks. So let me know what you think. It’s short, but it was supposed to be.

Habit

The suitcase was older than he was. It was hard-sided and heavy, but he liked using it for times like now. He had been walking for most of the day, hoping someone would stop and give him a ride to...somewhere.

No one had, and he had gotten tired of walking. Now he was sitting on the shoulder, using the suitcase for a seat. He sat, staring at the worn-out highway, watching the summer sun send heat waves rippling off the faded blacktop. The suitcase wasn't very comfortable, but it was better than the baking hot, hard packed dirt on the shoulder of the road. At least he had been able to find some shade.

He sees a car coming up in the distance. His thumb goes out, but it's more from habit than hope. The car roars by him, throwing up debris from the chewed-up highway. He was so tired of being covered with that grit. It was in his clothes, his hair, and he thought he would never get it all out of his teeth. Maybe he could get to somewhere tonight where he could get a shower. It has been a while.

He has a brief moment of relief as a breeze picks up, rustling the branches of the tree overhead. It has the faint scent of rain, and he hopes he can find shelter before the storm gets here tonight. Almost as quickly as the breeze starts it's gone. The summer heat rolls over him again, and he feels the sweat trickling down his spine.

He has been sitting, resting for about an hour now, and it's time he started walking again. His legs ache with stiffness as he stands. He lifts his battered suitcase, and starts heading into the falling sun. He feels every rock underfoot through the worn-slick soles of his thrift store sneakers. They are a little better than going barefoot he supposes.

He has started to lose track of the days since he left. They have all blurred one into the other in his mind. He hears a car approach again from behind. Again, his thumb goes out. This time the car slows. He hears the tires crunching on the gravel of the shoulder. He turns and sees the truck roll to a stop. The driver sticks his head out,

"You need a ride son?"

The young man nods.

"Well, hop in."

The young man throws the suitcase in the bed of the truck as he opens the door and gets in. He feels the welcome blast of the air conditioner, and the sweat cools instantly on his skin.

"I can take you to the next town up." says the driver.

"Thanks."

"Where ya headed anyway?"

“West." the young man answers. The driver nods.

The old highway hums under the truck tires. Mile markers roll by in silence.

The driver looks at his new passenger.

"You runnin' to somethin' or away from somethin' son?"

The young man opens his mouth, hesitates.

"I don't know anymore."

He looks back out the window, watching the mile markers pass. The sun drops towards the horizon, and this day begins to blur into the last.

Habit by Andrew Gatlin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Just?

I found this cool website the other day. It's called Wordle. It lets you upload a bunch of text, or link to your blog, and it will generate an image of the words you use. The bigger the word in the image, the more you use the word. You can customize the layout, font and color scheme to make it look however you want. Pretty cool, I thought.
So, apparently I use "just" a lot...