Song: “Roots” by M∅
The dust swirled around her like the smoke from that old farmhouse. Sandra kicked the dirt harder and watched the clouds consume her tattered shoes. The sole of the left one hung half-on, and scraping it against the ground didn’t exactly help. She didn’t care much, though. She’d walk barefoot if she had to—still might if a car didn’t come by soon.
She’d jabbed her thumb toward the road two miles ago, but she’d soon let her wrist go slack. Now her hand just dangled there as though she were letting a palm reader decide her fate.
Fate smiled upon her after all, she supposed when a car’s engine rumbled behind her. She didn’t look at it until it slowed to a stop beside her. It was an old—1970s, at least—pickup truck with chipped hunter-green paint. It reminded her of her grandfather’s, and she remembered standing in the truck bed as he drove around the barren field. The sun had beat down on her that day but not in the bad way—lemonade and a nice tan, not suffocation and melting on the front porch.
This wasn’t her grandfather’s truck, though, and today was overcast anyway.
“Where ya headed?” the truck’s driver asked, once he’d leaned over to roll down the manual window. His smile was missing a few teeth, but his eyes looked kind enough, and the young redheaded girl beside him hadn’t shrunk away when he’d leaned over. She didn’t have any bruises, either, and her clothes were clean—not fancy, just clean.
Sandra glanced at the road ahead and shifted the bag on her shoulder. “Anywhere.”
“Hop in.”
The redheaded girl shifted to the middle of the bench seat, and Sandra climbed into the truck. They drove for a long while without talking; the driver had tried to strike up a conversation, but Sandra hadn’t offered more than politeness demanded.
She stared out the window as the radio, the news, droned on in the background. A man was talking about the economy using terms she didn’t understand, and briefly, she wished she’d gone past the eighth grade.
In the back of her mind, she flipped through all the postcards she’d ever seen and wondered if she might find home in one of those places. New York would be too loud, she decided, but maybe Seattle wouldn’t be so bad.
“… burned down today after an apparent case of arson. Witnesses saw a suspect fleeing north on Hickory Road. Suspect is a woman of average build with light-brown hair, last seen wearing blue jeans, a gray t-shirt, and an olive-green jacket. Suspect is thought to be armed—”
Sandra’s forehead struck the dashboard as the truck skidded to a stop. The brakes squealed in a pitch that reminded Sandra of the hogs back home, slaughtered prematurely to spite her mother. Sure, maybe that wasn’t fair to them, but as far as she was concerned, they would’ve died anyway—today, months from now, what difference did it make?
Sandra sat up and lightly touched her forehead, tender from the collision. Smoothing out her olive jacket, she looked at the girl beside her and twisted her lips into something like a smile.
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Miles Away 