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Ben stood in front of the Camper van, reaching high into the air with his mobile phone, trying to find a signal, but there was nothing. He lowered his arm and turned to look at Jo, still sitting in the driver’s seat with her feet braced against the open door. He shook his head and limped over to her. She was pawing over an unfolded road map as she smoked a cigarette. She had a pair of sunglasses perched on her head, despite the overcast sky above. She looked from the map to the odometer on the dash and back again. Ben took out his tobacco and papers and started rolling.
“It'll probably be dead until we reach Perth,” he said.
Ben lit his roll-up and looked at the vast expanse of nothingness surrounding them. He began to feel a pull from its melancholy emptiness, as if he might lose himself altogether in that landscape. The more he looked at the horizon, the less significant everything else seemed. He noticed Jo was up and moving. She folded the map and stuffed it into her daypack with a large bottle of water. She then slipped the pack on to her shoulders and made her way to the rear of the Camper van.
“What are you doing?” said Ben.
Jo started to unpick the cord holding a mountain bike against the carry-frame on the back door.
“Jo?”
She slowly turned to face him, her face tight and braced for trouble, as she lifted the bike off its rack.
“Now, don’t lose it with me...” she said. “...But according to the map there’s a little coastal town not far away.”
“By bike?”
“By bike. Twenty miles if my math is as good as I think it is.”
“What?” said Ben. “We’re in the middle of nowhere. I haven’t even seen any road signs, let alone signs for a town.”
“Chill Ben. I checked the map, it's there.
“You can’t just cycle off alone out here Jo. What if you got it wrong? What if it’s a hundred miles away?”
Jo straddled the bike.
“I’m not wrong,” she said. “Look, I reset the odometer at the last fuel stop, I know the mileage.”
She watched his expression grow darker.
“Ben.”
Ben stepped in front of the bike and rested his hands on the bars.
He sighed.
“OK, I’ll go,” he said.
Jo smiled at him and looked down at the prosthetic leg hidden in his jeans.
“Yeah, because you love to cycle,” she said. “With that, twenty miles really will seem like a hundred.
“Don’t do this to me Jo.”
“Relax. Deep breaths, like I showed you.”
Jo watched her lover try digest this and wrestle down his rising tide of anxiety. She leaned across the handlebars and kissed him, long and slow, and when she pulled back, his breathing was slower, and he was more relaxed.
“I’m going to be fine,” she said.
“I’m not happy you know.”
“I know,” she said, smiling again.
Ben watched helplessly as she cycled around him in a wide arc, before circling back on to the road.
“What's this town called?” he said.
“Sweetwater,” said Jo.
“If you don’t see any signs in a couple of hours, head back. I don’t want you out there in the dark.”
“Relax old man.”
She struck out on the road, heading in the direction they'd been driving.
“There’ll probably be a car along any minute,” he called.
Jo waved at him from the bike without looking back.
He watched her slowly diminish to a speck as she rode away, engulfed by the endless landscape.
*
Ben paced around in circles with an agitated limp, smoking relentlessly. He stared out along the road towards the horizon, straining to see Jo, even though he knew she wasn't there.
He watched the sun slowly edge higher through the sky and dropped his last roll-up into the sand with the other butts he'd accumulated. He ground it out with the heel of his trainer and then sat down in the open side of the Camper van. He pulled off his t-shirt, then his trainers and jeans. He sat back down in his boxer shorts and looked at the prosthetic left leg fastened just above where his knee used to be. He detached the device and stared at the naked flesh where his left thigh finished. The gleaming white stump was a sharp contrast to the rest of his tanned skin. His dirty secret, his ever-present reminder of the man he had once been; of the man he despised. He sighed and held the detached prosthetic leg in both hands, bending the knee joint. He hated this instrument almost as much he hated himself. He stared out along the empty road in the direction Jo had left again, but there was still no sign of her.
*
Ben slept. He was dreaming again. His closed eyes danced beneath their lids, as his recurrent nightmare took hold of him again. A flush of sweat covered his forehead, as if he were fighting a fever. A distant noise, a car engine, reached into his troubled subconscious and joined the jumbled narrative there. He moaned and stirred. His wild, scared eyes snapped open to face the world. Ben sat up with a start. He looked down to see he was wearing both his prosthetic leg and his clothes. He hobbled out on to the roadside. In the distance, a battered old recovery truck bounced along the bitumen. Ben squinted at the vehicle as it drew nearer, until he could finally make out Jo riding in the passenger seat. He let out a long-held breath and allowed himself a smile.
The recovery truck swung in way too close to the Camper van and skidded to a halt, forcing Ben backwards. Jo jumped out of the cab and joined him. He mouthed “You’re great” at her. Jo smiled back, feigning shyness.
“See,” she said, jabbing her finger into his chest. “I told you I’m great.”
A gruff, Australian voice interrupted the reconciliation almost immediately.
“You really managed to put her in the ground, eh?”
Ben turned and watched an aging, tall drink of water approach them and slowly circle the Camper van, inspecting the damage. The older man wiped his hands on a dirty rag and stuffed it into the pocket of his greasy blue overalls. He then took a cigarette from behind his ear and lit it. He continued to walk around the vehicle, stopping to bend and tut every now and then.
“Well, Mister...” said Ben.
“Lonesome,” said the older man.
“Well, Mr. Lonesome, what do you think?
Lonesome slowly turned his head towards Ben and snorted with contempt, before spitting on the ground.