From sick to "Well"

At a stoplight, she sits. Waiting. Sipping cold coffee, she begins to make love to the Marlboro man. Her eyes have turned from red to green. Finally, she is moving. Creeping his slowest creep, Satan sits in the car in front of her. Blowing his toxins. Her complexion feels violated, as her nose begins to flood.

Engines begin to fall from the sky. They race from behind the trees, invading her space and spirit. She makes a tight fist around the steering wheel. Plotting. Passing. Seething. What started as a journey for a caffeine fix, resulted in an achy head and an agitated soul.

She needed to get out. Scrimping, saving, stashing, she could never seem to get wherever there was. Looking down at the dash, her money light was blinking. She pulled in to fill her tank only to read “see attendant.”

In she went, digging through her worn pockets for cash, she pulled out a twenty. A warm, weathered face from behind the counter greeted her. “Twenty on pump number two, Hun?” She smiled and nodded. “Well, don’t you look tired and beat to shit. Put fifteen in the tank and five for Lucky Sevens”, she didn’t wait for a response, rang her up, and handed her the scratch ticket. Her shoulders shrugged, she thanked her and headed back to the car.

On the steering wheel she scratched. Her hands went from steady to shaky as those gorgeous 7’s appeared one after the other. That guardian angel had led her to $20,000 that day. Her smile ran from ear to ear as she ran back into the store. Patrons stared in confusion as the two women laughed and hugged. Not all angels have wings. Some have grey hair, wear name tags, and chain smoke in alleyways on their fifteen-minute breaks.

For the first time in a long time, the next morning couldn’t come soon enough. She packed what could fit on her back and drove her old VW Rabbit to the airport. “Non-stop Netherlands” jumped off the board and it read like poetry.

She headed onto some bad lighting in the airport store and filled her arms with guilty pleasures. Swedish fish, popcorn, gum, cigarettes, and some mindless magazines with layers and layers of hot and sweaty eye candy.

Boarding the plane, she floated to her seat. With an aisle spot and a good-smelling man seated next to her, all was right in the world. Bloody Mary’s on the plane and a seven-hour slumber was everything she needed.

She traveled to a town called Well, where it was just that. And soon her tired eyes experienced a dose of therapy. The clock began chiming, it was noon. Happy bells rang and little voices laughed. A thousand two-wheeled machines covered the earth around her. Women older than her mother, riding with baskets and smiles. Fathers pedaling with sons on laps and shoulders.

She sat on her borrowed bicycle, which over time had held one hundred different bodies. She pedals and is soon exposed to mossy pastures and fields of corn. The crystal sky begins to sweat and her skin becomes damp. The sun that had warmed her head began to play hide and seek.

Wet and freshly bruised from her travels, she took rest on a nearby bench. She pulled her little black notebook from her bag, which had documented her dreams for years. But just this one time, she decided to put the pen down and be selfish with the moment. Looking up to see if the sun would give her a smile, she witnessed the perfect rainbow. And that was when she understood.