Burry Me Alone

I was driving down the forgotten highway that bright December day like so many others. I stopped in the vast and consuming landscape for what I thought would be no more than a brief moment to stretch my legs.  It was too far south for snow, but when I breathed in a few mouthfuls of fresh air, the chill worked its way through my coat, and I found myself shivering on the side of the road. At least I told myself it was the cold air and not the knowledge of the city I had fled. I had always been the problem child, and was always best at fleeing when everything inevitably fell apart. Running away was always my favorite hobby.

As I scanned the horizon, I found myself squinting at a spec in the distance, the only thing to break the uninterrupted sand. I saw the faint outline of a cluster of dark buildings against the blue sky. I couldn’t remember how long I had been driving, and my legs longed for something other than the car and the gas pedal, so I decided to walk there and see what I found. I didn’t know where I was going, so I was in no hurry. 

I made my way unafraid toward the structures looming in the distance. My feet dug deep into the sand with every step I took, but hard going had never stopped me before, and the movement warmed me. The sun was bright and hot above my head.

As I drew closer, I saw that my destination was a shopping mall like the one I had worked in as a teenager in the food court, where I had first learned that I didn’t do well with uniforms or taking orders. Weeds had broken through the concrete parking lot, and dead and dry plants had been piled against the east wall by the same wind that tugged on my hair.

When I turned back, my car was nothing but a spec of a shadow in the distance, and I had already come this far. The place was completely deserted, but I wanted to find out if the doors would still open, so I walked toward the entrance, my footsteps echoing over the concrete. The electricity was long gone, but there was enough of a crack that I could grab the edge and pull, and soon enough, I was inside the empty shell.

Everything was exactly as I remembered, even though that first food court was a universe away. All the same stores were still there, and if it wasn’t for the cracked signs and naked manikins, I would have thought I was walking into a memory. There was Claire’s, where I had drooled over nose piercings, and Abercrombie and Fitch, where I had spent hours wandering around, submerging myself in the perfumes and peppy advertisements.

Now, the doors were all closed, just like all the doors to the bright future that had once awaited me. All that was left was the smell of dust and emptiness. The animals had made their way into all of the leftover boxes and scrapes of food, and the remnants of cardboard littered the floor, torn to pieces long ago. The pretzel cart was overturned, and the compartments were opened and ransacked. The wind shrieked outside, and I wondered how long I could make it if I stayed there with all the ghosts of what I could have been.

The road and wherever it was that I had been going all seemed so far away that I wasn’t even sure that I make it back. Maybe there was nothing left to run from, and no reason to put myself through the agony of trying. Out there in the desert, there would be no more bridges left to burn, no more jobs to be fired from, no more friends to disappoint. I could stay in that shelter against all the odds, build my own world, even if that meant that I would be left alone for the rest of my days. Eventually I would be buried under the burden of the memories that haunted every inch of the building and every patch of tired skin. Maybe here I could finally have a space to call my home, where no escape would be necessary.

Calla Smith lives and writes in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She enjoys continuing to discover all the forgotten corners of the city she has come to call home. She has published a collection of flash fiction “What Doesn’t Kill You”, and her work can also be found in several literary journals .