True North

SWEAT DRIPS FROM MY FOREHEAD. I swipe at my wet hair trying to get it off my face. Without the humidity in the air, your lungs want to shrivel and die with each breath, add in the heat and you have a recipe for disaster.

Disaster, that’s exactly what I’m facing. Sitting outside of my broken down car on a lonely stretch of highway between Los Angeles and freedom was not my plan. I paid a mere nine hundred dollars for an old Toyota Camry, but I had hoped it would get me more than a few hundred miles outside of L.A. I knew I was in trouble when the oil light came on. I was screwed the minute the check engine light blinked rapidly, and the engine began to sputter. I pushed the green beast as far as it would go and pulled over to the side of the road as it died a slow death. I managed to choke out another mile before it coughed and collapsed, leaving me sitting here on the open highway with the sun high in the sky.

Sweat drips from my chin and lands on my chest. A constant bead of perspiration pools between my breasts. With the car door open, I sit on the torn leather-like upholstery of the driver’s seat, trying to protect myself from the sun. I don’t know what’s worse: the heat, or the feeling of despair.