Kansas Clouds

By Susan B. Bentley © 2007

"I think we're stuck."

"Jesus."

I looked down at the tire as Kat walked away. It was stuck in a three-inch layer of diarrhea coloured mud. The side of the car had the same colour spattered up the side, like a toddler's unfortunate accident or me after too many beers. Kat sat down on the side of the track, dusted off her hands. Kat was a big girl. If she couldn't move the car, I wasn't sure who could. She hung her head down and stared at the crud on her sandals. She mumbled something.

"What?"

"I said 'stupid, frickin' ghost towns'."

"Oh," I kicked the wheel and leant against the hood of the car. Pulled myself up, lay flat out on it, staring up at the sky. It was a hot day but there were puffy white clouds zipping past, like an old movie, all fast shutter speed and no sound. I turned over, leant over the edge and grabbed my bag from the ground.

"What are you doing?"

"Recording the moment."

"Jesus."

Click. I got a photo of Kat just before she gave me the finger. Lying back down, I moved the lens across the sky, trying to capture a cloud on its journey. I sat up and took a picture of the track ahead. Nothing but mud and dust, bordered by fields of corn slowly moving in the breeze, nothing but empty for miles ahead. I put the camera down and checked my jean pockets.

"Bum a smoke?"

Kat looked at me like I'd grown a second head, "you do realise we could be stuck here for hours?" She threw the pack at me, then her lighter.

"Then I'll smoke reaaally slowly."

"I may well have to kill you soon."

I blew out a smoke ring, kept staring at the horizon.

"Surely, in the interests of continuing the species, I should kill you? More meat on your bones."

Kat sighed and leant back, stretching her pudgy legs out, "I'm hoping I'm all gristle."

"Mmm, tasty."

"You'd really do it, wouldn't you? You'd eat me."

I coughed out a laugh, "Hhoney, you're really not my type."

She threw a handful of mud at me.

"Watch the camera!"

"Jessie, this is serious!"

I leant back and pulled my cell out of my front pocket, waved it at her.

"No coverage still? Jesus."

"You wanna walk back to the interstate?"

"Nope, I wanna find my ghost town but I think that's a wash now."

Kat pulled herself up and joined me at the front of the car. She leant back and we sank into the mud just a little bit more.

"Easy."

"Shut up," she grabbed my cigarette out of my hand. The breeze picked up and the smoke blew back in her face, her hand coming up to wave the plume away. "It's probably a mile or so thataway." She waved her hand in the direction the car was facing and I reached out and grabbed the cigarette back. "But..."

"But, it might not be, it might be the invisighost town, just like those other two. TripTik sucks."

"No shit. Over a thousand miles and only a giant ball of twine and an Elvis museum. Not a ghost town in sight."

"The museum did rock though, you gotta admit that."

"My Mystery Train-er Tots were heavenly."

"Exactly, and you can't beat a fifteen foot statue of Vegas Elvis in the middle of nowhere, belt a-glistening in the sun."

"Sure can't."

We both lay down, the hood creaking a little but holding under the strain. We were at least fifteen miles from the interstate and we were going to have to start walking soon, we were just delaying the inevitable.

"'Nother smoke?"

"Why not."

The wind was really picking up now, clouds rushing by, the sound of the breeze catching in our ears, no other sounds, just that effect where, if you cupped your hands to your ears, it sounded like waves crashing on the shore.

"What?" I took my hands away from my ears.

"I said 'what are you doing?'"

"Thinking about the sea."

I cupped my hands round her ears so she could appreciate the waves amongst the tall fields of corn, the surf crashing against the shoreline in the middle of Dicksville, Kansas.

"Cool."

"Yeh."

"Ya wanna start walking?"

"Not especially. You?"

"I'm thinking snack time first, build us up for the long haul back."

I jumped off the hood and rummaged around on the back seat. We had enough old Easter candy to last us until Christmas, a side of beef in a cooler courtesy of Kat's mom and a ton of pork rinds, our nod to The Sure Thing. I waved a pack out the car door, "Pork rinds anyone?"

"Shut up."

I grabbed a bag of Goldfish from under the front seat and a can of warm coke.

"Here."

Kat tapped the top of the can.

I stuffed a few goldfish in my mouth and walked to the middle of the track, listening for any noises other than the wind. Nothing. I looked up, chewing, held my arms out and started spinning on the spot, opening my mouth and singing a note out to the breezy clouds.

"You folks need some help?"

I stopped spinning and clutched the guy in front of me as my brain kept going round and round. Kat pulled my hands away from him, an old farmer in a cap that read Tom's Dry Goods'. He had the blackest moustache I'd ever seen. Kat beamed at him as I held onto her arm, the clouds and the track and the mud still spinning around too fast. The farmer shook Kat's hand and she smiled at him, her chubby cheeks widening.

"Yes sir, we surely do."


Susan B. Bentley is an aspiring writer who's lived in Berkeley and Brighton but dreams of St Kitts on a daily basis.

A Grand Day Out

By Susan B. Bentley © 2007

The day hadn't quite gone according to plan. We'd reached the great magnificence of the Grand Canyon at midday but, with the sun filling in all the shadows, no dark against light, it just looked like a big, blank hole in the ground. We'd walked around for a while, had an overpriced lunch surrounded by screaming babies and countless fat moms, sweltered in the mid-July heat. By the time we were driving back, we were one big mismatched family vacation bundle of hell. Mark and Martin were playing around in the back - with my near constant shouts of "will you two just shut the fuck up" falling on deaf ears. Andy wasn't any help - he just stared ahead, hands gripped tightly on the wheel, driving through the pitch black with his beams on high, hardly having to lower them, there was so little traffic.

This was supposed to be our honeymoon but Mark and Martin had caught up with us at our motel in Flagstaff, grabbing me at the breakfast counter with cries of "holy shit, what are you doing here" and "oh my god, you should've seen this stripper, man, we're totally gonna hook up when I hit New York." Jesus. The pair of them had run round Vegas like Hunter and his lawyer, strung out on mushrooms, searching for hookers and only sobering up for the time it took for Elvis to pronounce us man and wife, wahah. Now, I had them in the back of the jeep acting like two-year olds who'd been fed too much sugar, which they had.

"What's his problem?"

Andy squinted at the rear-view mirror. I turned in my seat and so did the terrible twosome. Two bright lights punched the darkness behind us, fast approaching. White beams into the back of the jeep.

"The hell?" Andy was losing his already thinned out patience, "I can't go any faster."

The road was single lane and gently winding, with a solid centerline and nowhere to pull over.

"Well, he can't overtake so he's going to have to wait." His fingers turned a shade paler on the steering wheel.

Mark started cackling but Martin shoved him, "shut up, it's the Hitcher, man, or Duel! Andy, dude, be very careful, you'll end up new wife-less. Suse, prepare yourself, yeh? You're gonna get ripped apart!"

Both Andy and I turned around then, "Martin, shut the fuck up!"

He sat back and went quiet, we all kept silent, listening to the revs of the car gunning right behind us. I was now seriously scared. How far were we from Flagstaff? I hadn't seen any of those emergency phones on the side of the road in ages, what the fuck were we going to do?

I only realised we'd all been holding our breath when the car shot past us at the first break in the line, revving off at well over a hundred, lights fading into the distance. The cackling recommenced now that the B-movie dragster had vanished.

Ten minutes or so passed, listening to Mark and Martin discuss the best way to jump off the Grand Canyon. Torchlight appeared up ahead, waving slowly in the middle of the road. Andy slowed down and then stopped, rolling down his window to talk to the guy with the torch. It was pretty obvious what had happened. On the other side of the road sat this German guy's car with a huge dent on the bonnet and his family sitting in the car, wife and children looking wide-eyed and pale. The bleeding carcass of a moose lay next to the car, dark patches of blood over the centerline. As Andy talked to the guy about our lack of cell phone and how we'd call the police as soon as we hit town, the rest of us were busy gawping at my side of the road. Down a little embankment sat the Duel guy's car, spun round to face us, completely wrecked, the front bashed in, windscreen pushed out and shattered on the ground, headlights broken, the interior dark. I didn't want to ask about the driver, I couldn't see him anywhere though I heard the German guy tell Andy that everyone was okay. Where the hell was he if he was so okay?

We left the accident behind us with promises of calling the cops and take cares. As the German family disappeared from the rear-view mirror, Martin was the first to say it, in unusually hushed tones, "ghost car, man, ghost car."

"Ten more minutes and that would've been us," Mark looked equally in awe of the drama we'd just confronted and, yeah, probably narrowly escaped.

I didn't tell them to shut the fuck up this time, my hands were shaking too much, I just let them prattle on about gored up bodies and killer truckers, all the way back to Flagstaff.


Susan B. Bentley is currently working on a novel that has to be finished by her 35th birthday or all hell'll break loose. Having previously lived in Berkeley and London, she now lives by the sea in Brighton, UK, but dreams of St. Kitts on a daily basis.