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Ben’s eyes snapped open. They were wide and alert, quickly swiveling around, scanning the here and now for information. His ears picked out Beck on the Camper van stereo, as his brain worked to filter dream from reality and past from present. His anxiety began to subside. He felt burning. His eyes dropped to his trembling right hand. A smoking roll-up had burned down to the filter between his fingers and left dead ash on the back of his hand. He reached over and took the cigarette and stubbed it out in the dashboard’s ashtray. He then covered his shaking hand, holding it steady until the tremors subsided.
Ben looked over at the woman on his right. A scruffy, beautiful blonde looked back at him from behind the wheel of the Camper van and smiled. She then turned her attention back to the empty stretch of road ahead of them. Ben reached down between his legs and retrieved a bottle of water. He took a long swig and then splashed some on to his hot face. He flipped down his sunscreen and stared at himself in the mirror. His dark hair was long and unkempt, and his skin heavily tanned by the Australian sun, except for the white patches of old scar tissue running down the left side of his forehead and cheek. He looked every one of his tired thirty-five years, and then some. The real giveaway was the eyes. Dark and haunted; they’d just seen too much.
Ben adjusted the sunscreen’s mirror to reveal a perpetual, empty road stretching into the distance behind them. He sighed and switched his gaze back to the horizon ahead. He stared at the endless road playing out before them. There was nothing else to see, until he noticed a distant, lone white speck travelling towards them.
Ben offered Jo the water bottle and she took it. He lowered the passenger window and leaned out, letting the rush of air cool his face. He surveyed the vast expanse of dry scrub stretching out towards the waters of The Great Australian Bight. The scene was one of beautiful desolation beneath a grey, foreboding sky. He stared absently through a bent and broken car bumper lying in the dust by the side of the road as they passed by.
His mind was still on the dream. The same dream he always had when he closed his eyes; the one where he lost control of his Audi, while switching lanes recklessly. The one where the car buckled and twisted, as screeching metal folded in on them and shattered glass filled the air. The one where he lost Rebecca.
“You, OK?” said Jo.
Ben nodded without taking his eyes off the road.
“How far?” he said.
“You don’t want to know,” said Jo. “We should’ve gone to Cairns.”
“Nah, it’s a tourist trap. Too many drunken backpackers throwing up.
“You mean too much sun and fun.”
Ben stared past Jo. Behind her the vast nothingness of the dry and faded plains of the interior reached as far as the eye could see. He looked out through the windscreen again. The approaching vehicle shimmered against the road in the distance. It was still too far away to see properly; perhaps it was even a mirage.
“That’s the first one today,” said Jo.
“Oh really?”
“Yeah Mr.Sarccy. It's your turn to wave.”
“You do it, it’s stupid.”
“That’s the point,” said Jo, “Strangers, the middle of nowhere. Go on lighten up, be stupid.”
Ben rolled his eyes and then a cigarette. Jo took a deep breath and held her temper. She was trying, but she’d had her fill of his moods on this trip.
“I wonder where they’re going,” she said.
“East.”
Jo glared at him and held it this time, waiting for eye contact. Ben just exhaled smoke and stared straight ahead to avoid any confrontation.
The approaching vehicle was clearly visible now. It was an old white freezer van, its bodywork scuffed and marked. Ben craned to try and see the driver, but the cab's interior was too dark. The dusty paintwork on the van’s hide was scraped and scarred, and its bull-bars were cracked and bent from numerous impacts. Ben began to tab on his roll-up nervously.
“We’re doing this trip for you, you know,” said Jo. “For us, but if you’re going to keep digging at me...”
Ben instinctively leaned back in his seat, bracing himself, his eyes wide again. The approaching van began swerving violently one way, then another, invading their lane, crossing back, and then invading it again. Ben jabbed a finger, pointing dead ahead.
“Shit,” said Jo. “What’s he doing?”
Ben didn't answer; he couldn't, he was frozen with fear. Again, the van steered out into their lane, but this time it remained there. Its bull-bars beared down on them as it came straight towards them. Jo hauled on the steering wheel and the Camper van slid off the road, narrowly missing the other vehicle. The Camper van’s wheels locked, as it tilted and skied through the dirt towards a gulley running alongside the road, churning up a cloud of thick, brown dust. The passenger side of the Camper van crunched to a halt against the wall of the roadside trench. Ben’s window shattered and erupted into a shower of glistening shards. The Camper van's bodywork groaned as the impact travelled through the rest of the vehicle.
The sand and dust slowly settled, revealing the creased Camper van intact, but wedged tightly into the ditch at the side of the road. The freezer van that forced them there was nowhere to be seen.
Ben’s eyes flickered beneath their lids and then opened. He looked across at Jo slumped next to him, held fast by her seat belt. He reached over and squeezed her shoulder. She groaned in reply. Ben closed his eyes and whispered a small “thank you” to someone up there. He unclipped his safety belt, then reached across and released her. He supported Jo’s weight as she flopped down against him. She started to come around.
“You OK baby?” he said.
Jo took a deep breath and sighed, as she opened her dazed eyes. It was a few moments before they could find focus, then she smiled at him.
“I think so,” she said. “You?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I'm fine now.”
Ben ran his fingers through her hair.
“I thought I’d lost you.” he said.
“No such luck Mister.”
Jo leaned away and sat up, groaning.
“So much for the road trip therapy,” she said.
“That idiot must have been drunk,” said Ben. “The way he was swerving...what?”
Ben tried to decipher the meaning behind Jo’s shocked expression. His eyes followed hers down to his left leg. A large tooth-shaped shard of glass was buried deep in his thigh like a dagger. He stared down at it and felt his head swim with nausea and confusion. He watched, almost paralyzed, as Jo slowly reached out with both hands and carefully took hold of the piece of glass. She tugged and it came free. Ben watched her drop it on to the Camper van's dashboard and turn to stare back at him.
“You lucky bastard,” she said.
She wrapped her knuckles against the hard surface of Ben’s prosthetic leg beneath the torn Denim where the glass had gone in. Ben continued to stare at her, gradually letting this sink in.
Jo began to laugh.
“You lucky, lucky bastard.”
Ben reached out and squeezed her tightly as she let it all out; her hysterical laughter soon turning to tears. He rocked her gently.
“I’m sorry baby,” he whispered.