26-1 2023-07-24

Slept through my alarm this morning. Woke up to Dad screaming at me, said he was late for work. Outside was all grey, it was awfully cold. Breakfast too, I only had one bite. Didn't brush my teeth, I put on my warmest clothes. Packed my bag, left my books. Food, water, sleeping bag, earbuds, book. I could hear the car already humming, Dad was honking at me. I left through the backdoor, climbed over the neighbours' fence. Dog caught my ankle. I hobbled along the sidewalk. The streetlamps were still on. Could still hear honking get farther and farther away. Honking stopped, ducked into the forest and watched my breath freeze, watched Dad's car speed past, couldn't see his face. Waited at the bus stop. Another person there was staring at his phone. I watched our breaths freeze. I watched the sodium lamps flicker and shut. I watched the eastbound pass us by. The westbound came soon after. Forgot my wallet. I slipped past the other guy while he scanned his card, threw myself into the back row. The driver yelled at me and everybody turned their heads down the aisle to look. I put in my earbuds and pretended not to notice.

A girl about my age sat next to me, I wondered why she wasn't in school, daydreamed about how our conversation might go:

"You too huh?"

She looks at me, surprised, as if suddenly pulled out of a daydream. "How did you know?"

"When two thieves meet, they need no introduction."

She loosens up and smiles.

"Where are you headed?"

"Away."

"Same."

The bus came to a stop in the exchange and I watched her get off without looking back before I had even said a word to her. I wondered if I ever would have actually said anything had she stayed longer.

I watched nameless people get on and off, listened to contextless conversations, imagined what they were thinking, where they were going. I stared at people's faces, they never looked back. Stop after stop, the street names began sounding unfamiliar. More people got off, fewer people got on. Soon I was alone on the bus except for a man with a hood and no shoes who I hoped was asleep. The bus stopped somewhere off the side of a highway and the doors stayed open. The driver hollered something so I bade everybody farewell and hopped off the bus. I felt a stiff sea-breeze but could see no water. I walked alongside the concrete barrier stepping over weathered furniture and broken hubcaps. Cars sped by fast enough to kill me. I wondered if anybody would stop and ask me if I was alright, if I needed help. Just then, a car slowed down and pulled up in front of me. It took me a minute to catch up to where it stopped. The window was still up, there was a woman inside eating a shawarma and looking at her phone. When she noticed me she froze mid-chomp and looked up nervously. I saw this pleading fear in her eyes, as if she was afraid of what I might do, We stared at each other for a while, frozen in place. When I felt tears welling up, I turned away before she could see. I walked on faster than before and didn't look back. I watched the same car speed past soon after.

The highway led to an area that looked a lot like a toll gate but with a lot more binational flags and security cameras. Cars queued across multiple lanes to pass by stern looking officers manning motorized gates. There was a railway that ran parallel to the highway across the border. I leapt across the ditch and walked along one of the rails, arms outstretched to keep balance. I kept walking and walking, focused on not falling off the rail. Until, I heard barking. I turned around to see a rather large dog jump on me and grab hold of my arm. A man with a rifle came running towards us, he kept saying something either to me or the dog but I couldn't hear him. It took him way too long to get the dog to let go of me. I couldn't feel my arm anymore. I didn't dare to look at it.

They haphazardly wrapped up my arm so I didn't have to look at it. They asked me all sorts of questions I didn't know the answer to. They took everything out of my backpack and spent a real long time examining it before doing a half-assed job of putting it all back in. More questions I couldn't answer. I wondered if I should just give them made up answers.

"Where are your parents?"

"Home."

"Can you call them to come pick you up?"

"Sure."

"Here, you can use our phone."

Ten minutes later, a Toyota Prius with a light-up Domino's sign and multiple "we deliver" stickers shows up at the border-crossing. A young man steps out with a pizza box and brings it over to the inspection building.

"Is this your son?"

A long, long silence as the pizza delivery guy, two border security officers, and assault-rifle dude all stared at me. The dog that bit me was still there too for some reason, panting heavily. I watched the expression on the pizza delivery guy's face change from confusion to tiredness.

"Come on son. Let's go home."