Fleeing the Ascendancy of Men

I-15

 

Rebecca was also driving. Also driving down I-15 in the dry heat and the flapping wind. She was fleeing—to some extent—the ascendancy of men. Fleeing the ascendancy of men into the desert. Where she was going she did not know. South to the desert. It called to her. The vastness. The red and white streaks. The perfect blue sky. Even the stifling heat that seemed to suck the very moisture out of one’s soul.

Her children were gone. Her husband gone. Her position at church, unneeded. Her services no longer required. She almost felt as if her time were up. Her duties released. That she was now free to disappear. Would anyone even notice?

She barreled down I-15 with holy purpose, with no purpose. Perhaps called by her grandchild, Becca, and Lee. Perhaps she’d go to Zion or Vegas. Perhaps she’d go all the way to San Diego to visit her brother. Or LA to visit Phelix’s family. She was needed nowhere now. And to be in a place of nowhere was also to be in a place where everything was possible.

She didn’t know what possessed her, but she kept on driving. And the miles and minutes passed like never before. Soon she was in Nephi and then Beaver, Parowan, then, suddenly, Cedar City. Only one bathroom and gas station stop.

Her mind drifted with the wind that would occasionally hurl against her car. Each second, each minute, each car, each field of lavender and wheat, each purple mountain, each rumble strip and double yellow line, each lake and bend in the road and overpass and square green mile markers, each couple and child and lonely truck driver passing her—all began to blend together. The whole of America itself it seemed, and it was a disjointed, confusing, beautiful, hypnotic swirl of utter beauty. And then, just as suddenly, horror.

Rebecca was soon cascading down a rabbit hole of thought. She could no longer keep her eyes focused on the road. She no longer saw the line of dotted yellow to her left and the line of white to her right, the boundaries of her lane, but instead saw only the road stretching in front of her, opening itself up to her. The boundaries of speed and lanes, right side, left side, seemed like shackles to her.

She was tired of the shackles.

Of always feeling limited and lonely.

For once she would take life by the horns.

She felt the universe open.

And it was then that she felt the wheel slipping in her hands, the slide of gravel, the distant noise of a horn, the feeling—it was a nice feeling—of weightlessness, zero gravity, nothingness.

The sound of her necklace slapping against the windshield.