The Silver Eagle Part II

....Oh yes, on my way, but on my way to where? The ticket in my jacket had Flagstaff, Arizona stamped in red ink across the face of it, but why Flagstaff? I knew of no one there, nor did I have a job there awaiting me. I just knew that I had to get away from the broken dreams of Atlanta. Too much hurt, too much pain here, yes, at last I am on my way.

The sound of rubber clapped in a hypnotic song on the old tar and concrete Georgia roads. The soft bump da bump lulled me into at state of contentment as I sat alone at the back of the bus. Starring out the window, I watched as the cityscape gradually morphed into dark brown fields of soybean, broken only by the occasional rundown clapboard barn. A mother with unruly children sat at the front of the bus and busied herself with newsstand copy of ladies journal, an old man that smelled of day old gin slept across the aisle from me. I reached in my pocket, pulled out a pack of smokes, and fired one up. I watched as the smoke twisted upward like a white serpent, crawling ever upward and then vanishing somewhere above the luggage rack. I leaned back in my seat and finished off the smoke. Returning my gaze back out the window, I noticed the sun setting behind a grove of pine trees. The sky became a kaleidoscope of colors as the large red sun winked from sight. I sighed softly, the old man with the smell of day old gin stirred, and I dropped off to sleep, succumbing at last to the constant bump da bump of an old Georgia Highway.

© J. Allen Wilson 2005