Ghosts in the Fuel Pump

This old gas station flashed by my train window in 2016 and pulled me straight back to the days of Route 66, soda pops, and “fill ’er up” summers, a forgotten station on a long desert stretch between Austin and LA, where time paused just long enough for me to remember everything.

Hi Way Service, Somewhere Between Austin and LA

The train slowed in the middle of nowhere,

that long desert nowhere where time forgets to move.

Out the window, I saw it

an old gas station standing like a stubborn memory,

Bob’s Hi Way Service,

still holding its chin up against the sun.

No cars pulled in anymore.

No “fill ’er up, bro” from dusty road trippers

coasting in on fumes and laughter.

No families crossing Route 66 with windows down,

radio crackling, desert wind whipping through the car

like a wild blessing.

But I remembered.

I remembered the soda pops in the metal cooler,

the kind you had to pop off with a little clink.

I remembered the attendants with desert dust on their sleeves,

smiling like they had all the time in the world,

washing windshields with a rhythm older than the highway.

Now the place stood quiet,

a relic with its stories tucked into the wood grain.

A masterpiece of time travel

waiting for someone to notice.

So, when the train stopped,

I stepped down, camera in hand,

and the desert held its breath.

I took the shot

a moment suspended between what was

and what refuses to disappear.

The modern station sat just down the road,

all digital numbers and LED glare,

but it wasn’t the one calling me.

It was this one

the ghost of the open road,

the last whisper of a world that once waved

as you drove by.

photo by Vicki Lawana Trusselli

copyright 2016