We stopped to freshen up at a gas station. It was by no means a pleasant experience. The tight white tiled cubicle with its depressingly bright light and cloudy scratched mirror stunk of piss and bleach, and I felt like even the water running from the tap was dirty. But even so, taking the time to brush my teeth, change my underwear and wash myself had the effect of making me feel more human. I struggled to fill up a big five litre plastic bottle with tap water in the small sink. Fifteen minutes later I left the cubicle spluttering – I had gotten a little excessive with my aerosol deodorant in a desperate attempt to feel clean and normal again. A woman was standing outside and she looked pissed off for having had to wait so long. She pushed past me and slammed the toilet door behind her. Jeez.
I looked around. Jack was already at the van. Good. I wouldn’t have wanted to wait around for him in a place like this. There were more people round here and they didn’t all look like happy vacationers. I didn’t feel as safe in places like this as I had near the lakes and mountains. Jack was holding a folded newspaper in his hands and reading it as I approached him. He caught sight of me.
‘Hey,’ he said, ‘I just need to go back and get a few more things, won’t be a sec.’
I waited in the van impatiently. A couple of minutes later he was back with a bag of shopping that looked heavy, and he was still holding that newspaper in his hand. He climbed into the van and put the shopping bag behind his seat with a hefty clunk. I waited for him to start the engine but for a moment he just sat there, silently, not really doing anything. I waited.
‘So,’ he finally said, ‘when was the last time you saw a live band?’
Oh god, was this another thing for me to feel embarrassed about? Just like the fact I hadn’t been out of the city for so long? I looked him in the eyes, quickly trying to suss out what his reaction might be.
‘A very, very long time.’
He raised his eyebrows.
‘Really?’ he said.
A sudden wave of anger soared through my body and I lashed out at him before I could stop myself.
‘Is that really so fucking incomprehensible to you? What, have you already forgotten that I haven’t exactly been living a fun, free, normal fucking life?’
He didn’t say anything. We were both silent. The sound of my raised voice left an unpleasant ringing in my ears. He started the engine, the radio came on and we drove off. I turned my body, leaned back in my seat, looked out of my window and pretended to be asleep while I secretly cried.
*
Beer had been a good idea; it relaxed me. It was dark and we were parked amongst other cars and trucks in the dirt outside the little building with the neon sign that read The Shack. After I had calmed down I had given in to his idea to come. I also told him he was crazy, and that I had no idea why I had ever trusted him in the first place, when he was clearly treating all of this like an excuse for a fun summer vacation. But I mellowed out after a small joint and a beer. We were waiting for more people to arrive, Jack didn’t think it mattered, but I was scared that unless it was rammed in there we’d stick out. I picked up the newspaper from the dashboard and glanced over the description again: ‘Monthly Jams at The Shack’. Every now and then, when someone flung the doors open to either enter or leave, I could hear music and bass-lines. There were groups of people hanging out outside drinking, smoking, laughing. They seemed friendly. The more beer I drank the more the music sounded inviting.
‘Come on,’ he said, ‘let’s go in.’
I nodded.
‘Tonight Silvia, we’re forgetting everything. Everything. We’re having some fun.’
I rolled my eyes. God help me. I downed the rest of the beer and I stepped out of the van. I was wearing a black chiffon shirt, which was one of the prettier items of clothing I’d packed, a tight black pair of jeans and a plain black pair of flat pumps. I mostly only ever wore black, it was generally a fairly easy colour to coordinate with my limited vision, and thus a good way of avoiding mistakenly buying and wearing something that was neon yellow, for example. And after all, black was meant to be one of the most flattering of colours. Sometimes, when I felt particularly brave, I would venture out into the world of colour too, but only after asking a shop assistant three main questions: Does it look good? Does the colour suit me? And, finally, how would you describe the colour of this? Sometimes the shop assistant would seem baffled, but sometimes not at all. I would then try to suss out whether the assistant was being honest or simply trying their best to sell me the item in question, and I would stare at myself in the shop mirror for ages, trying to visualise what the colour might look like. Sometimes I’d spend a long time locked in a fitting room with my eyes closed, trying to make these visualisations. But usually I wore black, and my everyday decisions of what to wear were based on the feel of the fabric. Who needed colour when you had texture?
We walked towards The Shack and as we got near the door I exchanged a few nervous smiles with some people who were lingering outside. They all smiled back, and I felt an overblown sense of relief. See Silvia, there’s nothing to be scared of, I told myself, you worry far too much.
Inside, the place was dark and full of people. It was really just one room, with a bar at one end, and the stage at the opposite end. A dim light illuminated the stage and the wooden panelled wall behind it. I looked around – even in the darkness I could tell the whole place was made of this raw unvarnished wood. I could even smell it, somewhere between the mixture of all the other smells that filled the room: sweat, perfume, beer, bodies and cigarettes. Some people were dancing to a DJ’s music, and some were chatting. The music was loud, people had to shout to each other to be heard.
Jack led me to the bar and got us both more beer, then he turned and nodded towards the stage. He nudged me to urge me forward, and as we walked towards the stage he put his hand on the small of my back and guided me forward until we were close to it. In my tipsy state his hand on my body gave me thoughts I tried hard to dismiss. I took three long gulps of beer. We didn’t talk, just watched, as the next band were set up on stage. I felt a hint of awkwardness and I wondered if he felt it at all too. At one point he turned round and smiled down at me, placed his hand on my shoulder and said, ‘You okay?’ I nodded. The band appeared. A pretty blonde fronted it, and they played a mixture of garage rock and country. I looked at Jack from the corner of my eye and saw that he was staring up at them, smiling, and nodding his head to the music. I looked around me and people were beginning to dance. Before long I found my body swaying to the music too.
There was an uproar of shouting and clapping after the band finished their first song. The girl introduced them in a deep southern accent, beaming at the crowd and saying thank you to everyone who’d made it to the gig. The crowd cheered some more and then the band went straight into their next song. It was so incredibly upbeat that in a second the whole room was moving with bodies dancing. Suddenly Jack took my hand and we too were dancing, smiling like two happy-go-lucky youths, and it just didn’t feel strange at all. The beer had made my inhibitions disappear and the music led me. I felt a happiness I couldn’t remember having experienced for many years. I felt completely carefree and it felt wonderful. And I was sweaty, very sweaty. Strands of wet hair stuck to my face as my whole body shook to the music. I didn’t care; I was dancing. I was smiling.
Later that night, when the music had mellowed and quietened, we sat around talking. The alcohol had made us lose the self-consciousness and the words were flowing freely, passionately. I was letting suppressed thoughts out for the first time, vocalising things that I had kept inside and hidden away from even myself.
So this was how it felt to share one’s mind.
I suddenly realised that Jack was actually very beautiful. I hadn’t noticed it before. No, that’s a lie, a total lie. Of course I had noticed, I’d just never wanted to find him attractive. And why had I allowed myself to truly notice and admit it now? Well, I was drunk. Drunk and happy.
‘You know,’ I said, ‘it’s good to talk.’
‘And dance.’
‘Yeah, it’s definitely good to dance.’
Before I knew it, we were kissing.
*
We may have had sex in an uncomfortable van in a parking lot in a sudden fit of lust, but it was beautiful. Afterwards, when we lay huddled together, his body against mine, I understood that I had never yet had this kind of sex. I had never been touched like that by a man. His touch seemed completely untainted by arrogance, hesitation or self-protection. Jack didn’t seem to restrain himself in any way. After sex I usually avoided ‘cuddling’ – even the mere word made me feel nauseous. It usually felt insincere, self-conscious… obligatory. This seemed the complete opposite. It felt natural. There was no shame in Jack’s affection.
As I lay there awake, smiling to myself, I realised something else. It wasn’t just him that had made this experience unique. It was me. This was the first time I’d ever in my life properly let go with a man. It was usually me who restrained myself, but this time I didn’t need to because Jack already knew most of my secrets. I had little left to hide. I don’t think I’ll ever forget how I felt that night, lying in the back of that van, his body around mine.
The next morning was surreal and beautiful. All the cars had gone and The Shack was now closed and boarded up, looking as though it had been abandoned many years ago. Around us there were no signs of the buzzing human life that had been there only a few hours ago. Lenticular clouds hung over the jagged sandy lumps on the eastern horizon, and the sun was only just rising – slowly waking and peering out. It had come to greet only me, for in this open dusty space there was not another soul in sight. The long dark shadows cast by the hills and mountains slowly receded, and light poured into the valley.
I had woken before Jack. I put some clothes on and climbed out of the van as quietly as I could so as not to wake him. My head rudely reminded me that last night’s alcohol consumption had been a little excessive. My feet hit the ground and I breathed in the air. It smelled like freedom.
I wasn’t deluding myself. It’s not as though I wasn’t aware of the fact that at any point this could all end and something far worse than what I’d ran away from would become my reality. All this I knew and feared. But for a moment, as I stood there looking out at the landscape and the sky, fear vanished, and all I had was my present reality. And presently I was free.
I paced forward a few steps into the sunshine and sat down in the dirt with my back to the van. The air was crisp but not cold. I spotted a bald eagle soaring high up. This was a bird I could recognise and remember way back from my early childhood. Unmistakable. Every now and then a gentle breeze tickled my skin. Silence reigned. All was still. Even the voices in my head seemed to be sleeping.
I sat there for a while trying hard to hold onto this meditative state, until the sun had fully risen over the horizon, spreading its carpet of light across the valley floor, and I heard Jack shuffling around in the van. I didn’t turn around at first, pretending I hadn’t heard a thing. So what now? I thought to myself. Would there be any awkwardness? I heard him get out of the van and then I heard his footsteps coming towards me. I should probably turn around now, I thought.
‘Morning,’ he said, rubbing his eyes, ‘you’re up early.’
‘Hey,’ I said, trying to sound as casual as possible.
He reached me, sat down and put his arm around me. We sat in silence for a few moments looking out at the landscape. For a while my body remained stiff. I was reluctant to show affection back, in case I’d misunderstood the situation. But what was there to misunderstand? For the first time there was nothing complicated going on, so, finally, I leaned into his hold, to which he responded by holding me a little more tightly. We sat like that for a while longer, saying nothing. I would have gladly sat like that for hours.
‘We should probably get out of this place and get some breakfast,’ he said.
For a split second I’d totally forgotten we were on the run, I had been lost in a blissful state of oblivion.
We weren’t too far from hidden places. As we drove further along, mile after mile, we reached a stretch with thick pine forest on both sides. We turned off onto a small path and once we were far enough from the road Jack stopped and switched off the engine.
I wondered what it was like for him. I knew I was crippled with fear every time I remembered I was hiding, but I wondered if he felt any of that same fear at all. He never showed it. My fear came through personal experience. I feared that at any moment the same people, organisation, whoever killed my parents could show up and kill me, at any moment. Kill us. But perhaps he knew better than me how big or small any threat was, and how likely it was that such a thing could happen. He’d studied cases like this, hadn’t he? Though, in reality, surely neither of us could really know anything for certain.
Jack had packed a lot of things. He had come well prepared. There were boxes full of cans, bags of pasta, oatmeal, garlic, jars of tomato sauce, apples, sultanas, nuts, crackers, cocoa powder, spices. That morning we had oatmeal and banana for breakfast. But I found it hard to eat. Ever since we’d left the vicinity of The Shack my mind had slowly sunk back into that dark place. A carousel of thoughts had taken over me.
‘What’s up?’ he said.
I shook my head.
‘Nothing,’ I muttered.
There was a few seconds pause in which we both knew I was lying.
‘What if they’re here?’ I whispered.
His shock brought me both relief and embarrassment.
‘Are you serious?’
‘Well they could be,’ I said, suddenly feeling defensive.
‘Of course they could be. “They” could be anywhere. Or they could be nowhere. Or there may not even be a “they”. We don’t know. We don’t have a clue. We don’t even know if what we’re running away from is real.’
‘This was your fucking idea,’ I said, without thinking.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry. You’re right. Anything is possible. Right now though, we’re in a forest eating breakfast and that’s all there is.’
I didn’t understand how he could be so relaxed.
‘How are you finding all this?’ I said.
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, that epiphany of yours. How is it to have had a realisation like that, to know that apparently all is well and there’s nothing to fear. How is it to know all that and yet be involved in what we’re doing now?’
‘What, eating?’ he laughed.
‘Oh, ha ha, don’t go getting all Zen on me, you know what I mean. This whole thing, running away from a potential danger. I’m fucking scared. Aren’t you?’
It took him a while to reply.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I guess sometimes I am.’ He paused. ‘But I check myself, and ask what it is I’m actually scared of and why.’
‘So you question your fears?’
He shrugged and then nodded, ‘of course’.
‘I do that too. Sometimes I wonder if I’m just running away from my own imagination. But I’ve also thought about death a lot. I’ve had to,’ I said.
He looked at me. He reached out his hand and placed it on my arm.
‘I don’t just mean about my mother,’ I said. ‘I’ve thought about death in more ways than one. I kept quiet all that time because I feared that if I didn’t keep the secret they’d find me and kill me. That’s what I fear most. That someone will come when I least expect it. That’s probably paranoia, I know. But because I’ve lived with this fear for so long I’ve also had a lot of time to address it. Death is inevitable, and potentially always just around the corner. Sooner or later it’ll come. I’m terrified of death, Jack. But I’ve also had moments where I’ve wanted to just disappear. Existence is fleeting, no matter who you are. So I guess I just wanted to know why it is I fear death. What about death makes it so scary? Is there a possibility of losing the fear of it? I haven’t come up with any definitive answers yet. Obviously. And I don’t believe in God. Or heaven. So…’
He was nodding.
‘Actually, I’ve often thought about death and fear in exactly the same way,’ he said, ‘I guess the fear of death is the fear of the unknown. And the fear of loss maybe, of losing life, but then, what is life anyway? And is life something you have or something you are? And is death really the opposite of life? Or the opposite of birth? Can life have an opposite? Isn’t life all there is?’
‘But, if I die, I lose my life.’
‘You lose your life… it’s a funny phrase, isn’t it? Makes it sound like there are two things there: something called “you”, and something called “your life”.’
I thought about what he said for a few seconds.
‘So…?’ I said. ‘That’s just playing with words, it doesn’t mean anything. The “I” and “my life” are the same thing.’
‘I get what you’re saying, but I guess I’m just wondering what the I is anyway.’
He turned himself towards me.
‘Where are you?’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s not a trick question. Where are you?’
‘Here,’ I said, pointing to myself.
‘What… here?’ he said, pointing from my head to my feet.
‘Yeah,’ I said shrugging, ‘that’s me.’
‘So your body? You are your body?’
‘Well yes, I guess. But obviously not only my body. My brain as well… I mean my mind.’
‘Do you mean your thoughts?’
‘I guess so.’
‘But if you are your thoughts, then what is the thing that knows you’re thinking?’
I contemplated this question for a little while.
‘Awareness, I guess.’
‘Yes,’ he said, and after a long pause he added, ‘but now what is this thing called awareness?’
‘Death can’t possibly be the end,’ I circled back to the topic at hand after a long pause, ‘because why would any of this have happened – my life, this life, Silvia – if after death that was just the end of it. It wouldn’t make sense.’
‘Maybe death is the end of Silvia, the end of Jack,’ he said, ‘but maybe it’s not the end, because maybe there’s more here than just a Silvia and a Jack… more going on here than just two stories and two identities with a beginning and an end. Maybe you’re more than just a Silvia.’
We packed up the van and started the day’s drive, while I carried on thinking.
‘So sometimes you get totally caught up in the story of Jack, in your story,’ I said, ‘and other times you see that Jack is just a story… but is it almost like you live in two realities then?’
He was silent for a long while.
‘I’m not sure…I don’t think so.’
‘Why? Because you see only one of them as reality and the other as an illusion?’
‘No,’ he laughed, ‘it’s just, I don’t even know what reality is.’
After our late start, our stops on the road were limited and short that day. My mind was full of thought throughout the journey, and by the time we reached a suitable place to park up for the night, I was exhausted. I climbed into the back of the van by myself, whilst he worked on his laptop at the front.
Does Silvia experience life, or does life experience Silvia? This was the question that floated round in my head as I drifted off to sleep that night.