A doom with a view
- 1 day ago
- 9 min read
Mom guided the Wagon to an empty place in the blackness and pulled the all done lever. “The best thing about the wilderness is that you only have to figure out one move at a time. Now that we know the road isn’t really closed, we can put that worry behind us and rest easy.”
With confidence filling her head and nothing but wilder-ness around us, Mom drifted peacefully into sleep. When the sun returned in the morning, it shone straight through the front window, turning the entire desert into shadows on a white screen. We followed the glare as adventure knocked on the Wagon’s belly, quietly at first and then faster and more violently. Mom groaned with each sucker punch and squinted harder to find the next rock before it found us. By the time the Witch made her first announcement of the morning, Mom was squinting so hard that her face looked ready to turn inside-out.
“Continue on this road for thirteen miles,” the Witch ordered.
The Wagon rattled over machine-gun dirt and rocky landmines for what felt like forever. Each time we had to slow down to find our way over a pothole or around a big rock, time stretched to hold the suspense as the world shrank into the inch in front of us. The space between obstacles got shorter until it felt like we’d been staggering blindly down this road for weeks. Then, the road crumbled away completely. There was a drop half a wheel high, followed by nothing but a stream of sharp rocks disappearing into the glare. The Wagon stopped.
Mom squinted into the shadows in the front window for a moment before giving up and pulling the all done lever. She released the seat leash. “I’m gonna get out and look.”
“I’ll help,” I said so I wouldn’t have to admit that I didn’t want her to leave me alone.
In front of us was a strip of wildness as wide as the Wagon was long. The ditch was filled with rocks—some the size of softballs, others the size of basketballs, and all ready to shift and roll if the Wagon dared step on them. Mom poked one of the bigger rocks with her shoe to see how heavy it was. It twitched and settled into the same place it was before she nudged it. She looked at the Wagon’s bellyheight and turned back to the softball- and basketball-sized boobytraps. After studying the cheesology of the ditch for a long time, she stood up and announced, “I think we can get across!”
We remounted and Mom commanded the Wagon to back it up so we could get a rolling start. She took a deep breath, adjusted her grip on the driving wheel, and ordered the Wagon to charge. We all braced for impact.
The Wagon filled with bangs and crunches as the road savagely kicked its underbelly. Mom’s head rolled on her shoulders as I rolled from one side of the bed to the other and back again. The Wagon made the final leap out of the ditch and landed with a thud. It kept rolling.
“I think we’re gonna make it after all!” Mom hooted triumphantly.
“Turn right,” the Witch commanded, cutting off Mom’s celebration. I may not know how to drive, but I know that when the Witch doesn’t say the name of a road, it means either we’re almost there, or we’re so deep in the wilder-ness that places no longer have names in human language.
The Wagon turned and the squint fell from Mom’s face. Her mouth did The Scream while her eyebrows did gymnastics. “Aaaah, I thought my face would be stuck like that forever!”
“How much longer?” I asked.
“In two miles you will arrive at your destination,” the Witch said.
But the Wagon didn’t seem so confident. It swayed like it had just chased its tail for an hour and was too dizzy to stand.
“What’s wrong with the Wagon?” I asked.
