Somewhere Far Away

Imagine.

Your name is Isabelle. You’re 21 and right now you’re very bored. You’re laying in your bed and staring into the infinite darkness. What else can you do? It’s night and you’re not sleepy. You’re sick of all the humans around you. You need a break. You want to go away. Somewhere far. Away from all these humans who have never understood you.

You get tired of trying to fall asleep so you pick up your phone. You press the lock button to see what the time is and as the screen turns on, at that exact second, you get an SMS that says, “Hey, wanna run away for a while?”. It’s from one of your closest friends. Someone who you can relate to so well and someone who relates to you! He’s got the perfect timing.

Since we’re imagining, let’s get a tad bit unrealistic. You reply saying “Yes!”, but you laugh in your head and think,  “Like that could ever happen!” and just then another SMS comes which reads, “Okay, I’ll be outside your place in five”. “FIVE? FIVE WHAT?”, you slightly panic. But for some reason, you’re sure he’s going to be there in five minutes. You get out of your bed and change from your PJs into jeans and a loose shirt. For some reason, you decide to put your blanket and water bottle in a bag. You put on your shoes and fasten the laces.

You sneak out of your house slowly. You make sure no one can hear you get out of your house. As soon as you close the door shut behind you, you see a car slowly comes in front of your gate. You run excitedly towards it, still making as little noise as possible. He lowers the shotgun window. Instead of getting in, you bend and look inside and say, “Hey!”. He says, “Get in, mad girl, before you wake them up”. You open the door and get in and he says, “Wait, don’t shut it”. He moves the car forward. He doesn’t accelerate because that would make noise. Once you cross a few neighboring houses, he says, “Now!”, and you slam the door shut and he accelerates.

He’s driving, you’re sitting shotgun with the window lowered, you’re looking out the window. You let the cold breeze hit your face. There’s no sound other than that of the car running over the road, the breeze hitting your face and the engine’s hum. You both don’t talk, you just enjoy the peace. After about an hour, he slows the car down and stops.

“Hey”, he says. You realize you’ had fallen asleep. “We’re here! Look at the sky”

You look up and there are a million stars. There’s a street lamp at the distance and there’s open land all around you. He opens the boot and pulls out a bag which has a king size bedsheet and two pillows. “Shit, I forgot the blanket!”, he says.

“I got one, for some reason, you say”, and you both laugh. He sets up a bed like thing on the ground in the plain land next to you and puts the pillows. You take the blanket and you both lay down and tuck yourselves in. You look at the stars and talk about the most random things. You point at stars and show him a constellation. Other than the low voices of the two of you talking there’s a very distant sound of a cricket and the sound of wind howling and the click sound of the car’s hazard lights but otherwise, there’s silence and peace.

“Hey, it’s time to go! Wake up!”, you had fallen asleep again. It’s around 4 am. Your parents wake up at 5.30. You need to be home so you quickly pack everything and get into the car. He drives you back home. You get out a hundred meters away so that you don’t wake someone up by closing the door.

“Thank you for this”, you tell him

“Aw, shut up”, he says and drives away.

You walk back home, sneak back inside and get into your bed. No one will ever know how beautiful the day was. It’s something that will probably live only in two heads.

You run your fingers through your hair. You find a leaf stuck to it. A dead dry leaf. A souvenir from an awesome night. A memory that you’ll stick in your memory book. Something that only you’ll know the value of.

Hope you enjoyed reading!!