by D. Richardson

Not when the closet door slams into the wall. Not when the gun is pointing at my face. Not until my own scream shakes me from paralysis do I realize I will not awaken from this nightmare. Hours past midnight we drive. Black. Bleak. Traveling into Hell. Drowning in darkness. No city lights. No town lights. No ranch security lights protectively pooling barns and outbuildings. That far away from life and speeding farther still with each mile across the desert. I know there is a gun behind me. Aimed at my head? My back? My husband? Like a dream within a dream, could this be a nightmare within a nightmare? Any moment I should awaken. Squeezing my eyes tighter, like warding off the impending sting of a needle, I force myself to 1985. Warmth. Sun. A sweet breeze. I feel my body relax on Maui’s sands. And I open my eyes. Darkness. Sour breath reaches dirty fingers across the back of the car seat, crawling unbidden into my nostrils, my throat. Burning into my brain, this stench of the unknown sears fear across my heart. A scar to carry as long as I— live. Away from home for several weeks, we made no plans to extend our trip past journey’s end. Predictable lives run on routines and schedules: Arrive at 9 p.m. Unlock door. Turn on lights, turn up heat. Rush to bathroom. Unload car. Arrive. Unlock. Lights— “Geez, did we leave the heat turned up?” Like rapidly increasing gas pump prices and spinning casino slots, I imagine our dollars rolling giddily away, fattening the next electricity bill. Ready to assign blame for the oversight, I turn toward my husband. With quicker reflexes than the rest of my body, my head snaps back toward the kitchen. In the half light bathing the counter sits an out of place rectangular metal cake pan, a knife protruding from its contents. Real time ceases to exist. During suspense films, the audience hears eerie music, sees movements in shadows, frantically whispers to oblivious victims, “Don’t go there! Look out! Don’t be STUPID!” In real life there is no foreshadowing music, no helpful viewers. Victims fall prey to a phenomenon where the mind attempts to explain away warnings. BOOM! Bursting from the closet so violently its doorknob bangs into the wall, rattling pictures and the bedroom mirror, a stranger waving a handgun rushes toward me. Like tumbling toy blocks, a juxtaposition of images and sound cascade slow motion-double time around me. Deep within my soul a hidden atom of terror mushrooms into an uncontrollable, unbidden scream. Action films elaborately choreograph fight scenes followed by tidy resolutions. Bad guy wins; escapes. Good guy wins; bad guy dies. “Cut!” All the stunt men, the actors, stand up, brush off, take five. No fight scene tonight. The gunman is the director. No arguing with a director holding a gun. After endless hours of indecision, he is ready to play out the next act. It is approaching midnight. Shaking violently, I am mute. Walking out of the house ahead of him— frighteningly wary of stepping on some unknown emotional land mine, his invisible trigger point— we get back into our car. Gun pointing back and forth, back and forth, its barrel miming a malevolent serpent’s head, eyeing first my husband, then me, the man warns us not to attract attention. No real plan, no journey map comfortably spread across my lap, my eyes are fixed, frozen forward, toward night’s pitch black maw. Is this the last time we will leave this driveway? How long can one night last? How can people sleeping soundly in their beds be so blissfully unaware of this highway horror? Hours drag across the barren desert. A distant fog of light grows, illuminating a sign welcoming us to the state line. My racing heart floods with relief. Here. Finally. Freedom. “Keep driving.” Take a shoe box stuffed with old photos, dump them onto the floor. Paper windows spread haphazardly, ignorant of chronological order. Like unorganized snapshots, this midnight journey is a jumble of side roads, railroad tracks, and cemeteries. “Stop the car.” Sitting. “Turn off the radio.” Waiting. My mind flicks through a filmstrip of family faces. My heart aches to tell my husband I— “Start the car.” Emerging from darkness, my heart fills with light: truck stop fluorescence, racing casino neon, state trooper flashers, and finally, the glorious scarlet sunrise. The journey we did not plan is the trip I’ll never forget.