There was a loud piercing cry and a flutter of heavy beating wings.When the dust had cleared the snake was gone, only its curving trail in the disrupted sand remained.He had missed what had happened, his eyes closed in quiet acceptance of his fate.He dashed out from under the blanket and looked around.Up in the sky was a large white bird with the snake dangling from its talons.The snake was struggling and as the bird circled around, it dropped from its grip onto the road.The snake immediately spun around and made its way back toward the shelter to take another pass at its wouldbe victim.
It stopped eating for a moment to look back at him and cocked its elegant head to the side.It gave a little nod as if to say,"You're welcome,"And beat its heavy wings again, lifting off with the lifeless body of the snake dangling like a noodle from its powerful claws.He watched it go until it was just a speck on the horizon, finally disappearing into the cloudless blue sky.He remembered that when he was a child there were many times he had wished he could fly, and again found himself entertaining the thought of slipping the bonds of gravity and going anywhere he pleased.It certainly would have made the trip in front of him a lot easier.
"L is all he needs to know and we'll leave it at that. "
"Why don't you tell him your full name, be friendly? "Gabe suggested as he
christianlouboutinstuddedsneakers stirred the beans with a dry twig.
At first he dismissed it as a dream, a sound making its way to his ears.It was faint at first, but when he focused on it, he could make it out.A harmonica was piercing the darkness from somewhere off the roadway.He stood up, and with a hope driven surge of strength, hauled himself in the direction of the sound.There was a large formation of rocks about two hundred yards away from the road and as he approached it he could see the flickering light of a fire.Finally another person and potentially the end of this reluctant journey;He staggered closer, his feet made light with the prospect of deliverance.
"You just make certain you feed him from your share, gabe.There'll be no splitting it three ways here. "
Short fiction
He looked at the bird in awe;It didn't look like it belonged here.It
christianlouboutinshoescheap wasn't like the nature programs he had seen or the books he had read where the predator perfectly matched its environment.Somehow he thought it should have been tan or tones of brown, but who was he to question it?He was just happy to see it and gave out his own cry of jubilation when he saw the bird pulling sinewy strands from the snake's body.
He stared into the cold sky of the desert night, the stars winking at him like so many taunting eyes.He thought that if he had just spent a little more on the tires he wouldn't be in this predicament and how hindsight really is always twentytwenty.He could have kicked himself or at the very least, banged his head on the hood of the car.He scuffed at the sand at the edge of the road and let out
christianlouboutinpigalle a torrent of curses as he looked at the twisted mess of steel and fibers poking out of his sidewall.
So here he stood, twelvethirty in the morning and at least fifty miles outside of the nearest speck of a town.To make matters worse there was no cell service.He had tried at least a dozen times to call out with each failure punctuated by an irritating beep.He weighed his options for at least an hour after turning off the phone.It probably made more sense to stay with the car, but as lightly traveled as the road was, his situation was not likely to change much come morning.His only real fear was of animals, he thought about wolves and how much he hated dogs.He had hated them since childhood and had a scar on his left buttock that in his mind justified his distaste for an entire species.A chill inched its way down his spine when he caught what he thought to be a distant howl drifting across the vast expanses of sand and rock.
The simple fleeting beauty of the morning soon gave way to an intense heat that had set in much sooner than he had first anticipated.He was grateful for the sunglasses that he had remembered to take from the glove box, and more importantly, the six bottles of water he had tied up in an extra tshirt to his back.He stopped to glance at his watch;It was twelvethirty.He couldn't have been moving for that long, he wasn't that tired.A closer look revealed that the watch had stopped and was now just as useless to him as his phone.Incidentally when he tried to power up the phone to check the time he found the battery life to be expired.His best guess was that he had been walking for at least six hours but the amount of sunlight made him uncertain of this, and the position of the sun was high, only adding to his confusion.
Surely it was nothing, it was his imagination made overactive by pure circumstance and a sky absent of a moon.This is what he told himself, and how he further convinced himself that the only things present in the enveloping darkness were only more of the same dreary sun baked scenery that had greeted him before the light was gone.He took a quick inventory of the car;Packing everything he thought he would need for a trek through the desert.Deciding to move at night, at a brisk pace he figured he could clock off at least a dozen miles by daylight and still have a few hours left before the heat would become a problem.He set out with a goal of twenty miles and the hope that with any luck a car would pass him in the morning.
The other man stopped his playing and scanned him up and down with squinted eyes,"Just don't block my heat, mind you. "
He should have run, but all he could do was watch as the snake again came at him.There was another loud cry and the bird of prey descended upon the snake snatching it from the road.This time it dropped it almost as soon as it had picked it up and again descended on it, pinning down its head and pecking it to death with its large curved beak.The bird was a brilliant white and after defeating the snake it stood with its massive ivory wings spread for a moment before pulling them in and further inspecting its prey.
"The name's gabe.What's yours, stranger? "The man with the
christianlouboutinoutletreal beans asked.
"Chris,"He said as he sat down on a smooth stone near the fire.He looked over at the other man who was tucking the harmonica into
cheapclshoessaleaustraliaonline his shirt pocket.
"Suit yourself, the beans are almost ready. "
Lost in his own thoughts he was surprised when the sun began to lower and the temperature was returning to a point that travel on foot would again be permissible.He packed up the blanket, the stick, and the bottles.Only three were full of water, one was empty, and one and a half were full of urine.He had done this as a worstcase scenario and had thought it to be quite clever, even though he didn't look forward to the point where drinking it would become necessary.
Gabe shot a distasteful look at
cheapestbeatsbydre l and turned his attention back to chris,"Don't mind him, my share's enough for the two of us. "
"Hello there,"The man tending the beans called out,"You look weary, rest yourself by the fire, stranger. "
His brief moment of relief was shattered when a crisp rattling broke the silence.Peering out from under his improvised tent he saw the gut wrenching sight of a snake coiled up in front of him;With all of the concerns about wolves the night before, he had forgotten all about snakes.The scales of its surprisingly thick body blended in well with the sand but it was clearly making no efforts to hide itself.Coiled and poised to strike it stared at him with its tongue flicking in and out and its rattle beating a deadly tune in the hot dry air.He fixated on the two intense yellow eyes that only seemed to stare back at him and pierce his soul.This couldn't be real, he hadn't seen many snakes this close before, let alone the venomous kind.He thought about those nature programs with the crazy hosts picking the damn things up by the tail and swinging them around for the cameras.He nervously shifted his foot the smallest amount and the snake took a quick strike in his direction.It was close, close enough that he decided he wouldn't move again.Frozen he could only watch as the snake twisted in front of him, causing him even to breathe quietly.
Morning was a welcomed change over the inky darkness that had hidden the road
shoespumps in front of him and cast a black blanket of uncertainty over his progress.As daylight broke the whole desert around him was bathed in color.Even the stark
**** pavement took on a warm and reassuring glow as the shadows receded and the sun spread itself over the landscape as if directed by an artist's brush.
"L like the letter l? "Chris asked.
He had finally calmed himself down about the water, deciding that he would take only the smallest sips when he absolutely needed to.And he managed to convince himself that he would surely encounter a car before he ran out.He clung to the fragile thread of optimism that ran through him and was able to put himself at relative ease.He laid back in his shade to rest, and with the grip of fear finally loosening, could feel himself start to drift off.
The snake began to move toward him, contorting its body and dancing about in a manner that only a snake could, taunting him with its deadly speed and lethal grace.The snake raised its flat pointed head level with his and looked him directly in the eyes before striking.
There were two men seated by the fire, one played the harmonica while an older man tended to a can that hung over the flames.He thought he recognized the tune from some old western, and a can of beans had never smelled so good to him before.
More than once he almost turned back, pausing to fight off the near crippling selfdoubt that had worked its way into his consciousness.But every time he had managed to keep himself moving forward, a task made much easier once
drebeatsstudio the car was out of sight.
He had opted for the cheap ones,"The others will do just fine,"He had told the man at the counter when he bought the tires.No reason to be upsold he had thought;Maybe he would have gotten the good ones if he'd had a better car.At any rate he had saved himself almost two hundred and fifty
christianlouboutinshoessale bucks and at the time it had seemed worth it.Now he would have spent four times that amount just to get off the side of this road.The tire had blown out at sixty and the sudden violent contact with the shoulder had sheared the axle in two.A detail he only came to realize after wrestling the spare from the trunk and jacking up the car.
The heat began to take its toll and he decided to set up a makeshift camp on the side of the road.Using a blanket he had taken from the backseat and a stick he had picked up along the way, he managed to create for himself a small but vital patch of shade.He would rest here during the hottest part of the day and if there were no passing cars to see him, he would continue when it was cooler.In the quiet solitude he started to become acutely concerned about the amount of water that he carried.Despite his diligent efforts to ration it, he realized that he did not nearly have enough to walk fifty miles and was not even certain just how far he had already traveled.
"You can call me l,"He said and tossed his feet up on a half buried bolder.