Creative: Imagine If We Could Go Back

“Imagine if we could go back,” she said.

“Just twenty-five years, that’s all I’d need or want,” she added.

“I don’t know,” her companion uttered, eyes pressed to well-worn optics. “I try not to regret.”

“There’s nothing you would change?” she asked. “Nothing?” “One night stand, job interview, or fashion disaster?”

“Probably,” her companion said. “Well, okay, yes, for sure, but I don’t dwell on those things, and besides, I left all that behind when I came down here.” “I’m a nobody here, no criminal record, or any record for that matter.” “In fact, I don’t want to matter.”

The road ran to the horizon, ups and downs of rough gravel and sharp edges. The landscape was green this time of year, the brief moment between ice ages when all things of color had a chance to shine. Six to eight weeks, maximum. Hard, low, and hardy. This was a land of survival, violent death, and wind. Oh yes, the wind. Unlike anywhere else on Earth.

They drove on, mostly in silence.

Road conditions changed kilometer by kilometer. The Hilux suspension twisted and tweaked as they crawled along in four-lo. Rocky stream crossings, long sections of corrugations, and wind-blown alleys cut between the peaks of the nearby massif. Finally, the road ended, and the two-track began, snaking up the hillside like a faintly beating artery. Evidence of man, but facing the erosion of time and history.

“I need to know,” she said.

“About what?” her companion answered.

“You know,” she said. “It.”

“Nothing to report, next question,” her companion answered, her right hand reaching to turn off the vehicle, then coming to rest on the worn knob of the gear shift. “Ancient history, and I’ve told you the details more than once.” “Tell me again.” “For the first and last time, promise,” she said, holding up her Scout’s Honor hand pose.

Her companion exhaled and leaned her head back, coming to rest against the rear window, before taking a long inhale through her nose, followed by a long, slow exhale—the cab of the Hilux filled with invisible grit blown through the cracks of window and door. “I had no choice,” she said. “It was him or me.” “There was nothing else, no one else, and there was no one coming to help.” “I took it as long as I could take it.” Her hands dropped to her neck, and then down to her waist, retracing the route of past wounds, long since healed in the physical sense, but far from it on the mental side. She was still wounded, and perhaps would be forever, the work now acting as a much-needed shield. “I was in his jaws, and now I’m not,” she added, returning the optics to her eyes. “ABS,” she said. “Always be scanning.”

“You’re strong,” she said.

“I’m not,” her companion replied. “I was desperate; there’s a big difference,” she added. “Look at me now, fled to the end of the Earth, staring at an animal much of the world doesn’t even know exists.” “Real brave.”

“That’s not what I mean,” she said. “I don’t think I could have done it.” “I’d be dead now, torn apart by the alcohol and rage, another statistic to be forgotten.”

“You’d be surprised what you can do when you have no other choice,” her companion said, looking over at her with jade-colored eyes, rimmed by the beginnings of tears. “That was a mental switch I flipped, and there was never a second of doubt.” “Him or me, plain and simple.” Live or die.” “Make a choice.”

They sat in silence while the guanaco moved silently across the landscape before them, framed by the dust-rimmed edges of the windscreen. “Something has them spooked,” she said. The guanaco turned in unison, heads up, ears moving front to back, nature’s security system on high alert.

“They don’t see it coming,” she said. “Not yet.”

“Neither did he,” her companion said, returning the optics to her eyes. “Neither did he.”