From Here to There
Story by WSAD on SoFurry
This is a weird one. I don't know what I was searching for as I was writing it, and I don't think I found it.
Over 3,000 miles of road lay between here and there. An empty road with only two lanes that stretched itself out so straight you could hardly tell you were turning as you wheeled down it at 100. The trip would take them a little over two days to make. They were doing stops every couple of hours to take photos.
There was nothing out here. No civilization. Barren in all directions save the lonely desert and what little it could produce. The road was just 3,000 miles from here to there. A quiet bridge between two worlds.
Never did they pass another soul. The bridge was empty and too few saw to take the old road made of asphalt and steel. Better ways existed. There were the ships to the south. There were the skies up above them. Roadways aplenty, but not the one beneath them now. Other ways, and all which were more comfortable and so much faster.
Together they’d chosen the long and uncomfortable road. Their jeep had all their things, or what things they could fit into the back of a old but reliable vehicle. All of it was boxed and taped shut tightly. It was like their entire world was now in their back pocket. Their two gas canisters were fastened to the back to keep them going for the journey, and they had a large tank of water nestled in between the boxes. They had a backpack each with food and and toiletries.
Driving was their way of doing things differently. One life had ended here and now they were to start anew over there. They had 3,000 miles to think about what being reborn would feel like when they crossed over the threshold. It was 3,000 miles for them to think about what it meant to die.
“Moon is pretty.” She said. Her back was to the asphalt with the jeep parked just over yonder at the edge of the road with two of its tires in the sand. Overhead the sky was partly cloudy with it passing slowly in front of the moon. The big orb was filled to the brim with the sun’s reflected light. They just happened to take their journey at the right time to see it so full in the night's sky.
“Yeah.” He told her. His back was to the asphalt, too. Together they lay on a blanket with the road as their mattress. No one took this road anyway with all its potholes and cracks. Had their been life in the desert the weeds would have laid claim to the asphalt a long time ago.
The light began to dim as yet another cloud passed across the moon’s pale face. They both watched as the light was swallowed up and the road where they lay fell dark. The sand in the distance was almost blue, and then it too fell dark. Minutes passed and the cloud moved away. The world then was pale blue once more.
He reached out and took her hand. He felt the softness of his fur against his bare skin. It was pleasant. He rolled over onto his side and pressed his cheek to her bare breast. The night was warm and humid with hardly enough breeze to rustle a feather. Neither of them were clothed, and their weren’t much in way of insects to bite and gnaw at them out here on the long road. The road was almost a purgatory. A place in between. They wondered what they meant for them.
She pressed her palm to his hair and rustled her fingers through the locks she’d found. She still smelled faintly of rose. It was the last perfume she’d worn when they were still here and before they’d left to go over there. A last glimmer of who they were before. Maybe it was the last vestige of it. It would be gone by the time they got there. They’d be reborn anew. She’d have to find a new, and different, perfume when it happened. He inhaled deeply.
She pulled him on top of her and he followed her guidance. The firmness of her muscle rested gently beneath the softness of her fur. She parted her legs and he found a place for his nose in the crook of her neck. Deeply again he inhaled and found the scent of rose. She sighed and ran her palm down his back as he found his place within her.
They laid together quietly. Another lone cloud began to cross the moon’s path again. By the time it had swallowed the light he was rocking himself gently against her. Her sighs were quiet. She breathed through her mouth as her hands explored over his back. When the moon finally emerged from behind the cloud he’d hastened his tempo.
She hastened him, too. Her legs were spread wide and inviting and her breathless noise beckoned him to a quicker rhythm. He did not stop to catch his breathe nor to rest a hair. Her sighs stopped and began anew as gasps that came in short and shallow bursts. She bite her lip and her breathing came from her nose sharp and predatory. He bit into the fur of her neck and felt the fur cling to his tongue. The scent of rose flooded his nostrils as he inhaled deeply, then shook before falling still against her.
They remained joined. Together tightly woven. He was drained dry and spent. His chest heaved slowly against her own, which did the same beneath him.
“I like how the light moves.” She said with voice a breathless pant. He pressed his face to her chest and felt the damp spot against his forehead. The fur stuck to him.
“What you mean?” He asked.
“The clouds. Always making the light waver as they float by.” She told him.
Another cloud passed over the moon and they both watched the light shift and darken as the cloud finished swallowing the moonlight. It was a big long cloud that took its time to cross the sky. By the time the pale light had returned they were quietly breathing in slumber. At dawn they would drive again. From here to there they’d keep on going until they discovered if the 3,000 miles of purgatory was worth it.