I'm feeling down.
I'm heading back where I started.
I'm hitching back.
The land is wide open,
Cold and blustery.
I decide to stand right where I am
Instead of walking.
I'm too tired to walk another step.
All I can do is stick out my thumb
And hope that someone will pity me.
A car shaped like a tear stops.
(Oblong and tapering to the back.)
I squeeze under a flap in the rear
That the driver secures after I am seated.
Once the "tear" is sealed
We begin moving.
There is a woman in the back with me.
I can barely see her,
Or anything else for that matter.
My eyes are tearing up.
I'm not crying,
But tears are streaming from my eyes!
How far are you going? the
woman asks.
I don't know, I say, trying to dry my eyes.
(I knew before where I was going
Before I got in,
But now I don't seem to know anything.
It is as if my mind has been wiped clean.)
What do you see? asks the woman.
I try to see her, but all I see is a blur.
I frantically blot my eyes with my sleeve
Trying to bring her into focus.
Just tell me what do you see, she
repeats.
(I begin to see the rudiments of a face
And the color of her hair -- red.)
I see that you have red hair, I
say.
And your eyes are blue.
No, I mean, (she says) what do you "See"?
I say, Sometimes I see what is coming.
Is that what you mean?
Right, (she says) and no one
believes us.
Us?
My name is Cassandra, she says.
And, yes, no one believes us.
It's very sad.
Where are you going? I hear myself asking.
To a place where I can just live, she
says .
I settle back for a long ride.
(Article changed on July 20, 2016 at 13:18)
(Article changed on July 21, 2016 at 11:10)