Ch. 10
The traveler was buried by an asphalt road in desert sand up to his neck, and his pale face and blue hair were caked with it. Once again, this just didn't seem to be his day. For that matter, he probably hadn't had a 'normal' day for a very long time, seeing as he had the interesting and not entirely controllable ability to pass directly through solid objects, a blessing and a curse that was very directly responsible for the mess he was in right now, something he tried not to think about. He reasoned, with remarkably questionable logic, that he should recall what brought him to this point in order to take his mind off of his current predicament. Questionable logic indeed. Yet for a total of about thirty seconds, it seemed to work. Yesterday morning he had left on a cross-country road trip, and had driven across two states when his car broke down that night, which was not the worst luck he would have on his misadventure.
Out in the middle of nowhere, in perfect darkness, surrounded on all sides by trees, he did what any normal person might do. He wandered along the road with his thumb sticking out. Unfortunately, normal people are idiots. When dawn began to creep up on the horizon, he found that the road he thought he had been walking along had actually disappeared a very long while ago, and he had no way of finding his way back. Hopelessly lost, he continued to trek through the woods, trying not to think of how bad things were turning out, something that he finds himself doing a lot of, with his luck. As the hours passed by, and it was nearly noon, the hunger, frustration, and heat had taken their toll on him. He started to worry about what he was going to do for food, seeing as he hadn't the sense to bring snacks on a cross-country road trip. He really wanted ho-hos.
He was busy amusing himself with the thought of a truck full of ho-hos randomly crashing through the trees and coming to a halt, when he tripped on a rock and fell face first into a small gurgling creek. He jumped back on his feet, and in a fit of rage, kicked around at the surface of the water. As he did so, there was a sound like pebbles being poured into the water. He stopped kicking and looked around. At the water. There were Skittles floating down the little stream. He jammed his hand into his pants pockets and found an opened bag of Skittles. So he had, in fact, brought snacks after all. He tore the bag into pieces and yelled obscenities that were nearly as colorful as the candy that had just run away from him. In a fit of rage, he yanked up a small log that was sticking half out of the creek, and wound his arm to strike at a tree trunk with it. He swung the log violently, and rather than impacting with the tree, it passed directly through it. The traveler's momentum, uninterrupted, thanks to the sudden intervention of his ability, carried him through the tree, where he then fell down, face first into the creek where it snaked around on the other side.
After running and crying for a little more than an hour, he came out of the woods and into an arid meadow, and at the far end of the meadow was a highway. Suddenly filled with joy, he bounded and skipped across the meadow, and was shot at. He shrieked in terror and yelled a few more obscenities. An unseen southern voice echoed back with a sincere note of concern. "Oh shit, I thought you was a deer, I didn't gitcha did I?" The traveler was unharmed, but scared out of his wits, and didn't even slow his run. He ran out to the highway and looked back. The hunter was standing at the far end of the meadow, in the woods. The traveler looked down at his body, making sure he wasn't hit, and when he was satisfied, gestured 'ok' at the hunter. "That's a relief. Don't just go boundin through the woods, you're askin to git shot. Be careful." The traveler wanted to remind the hunter that deer was out of season, and that it's illegal to hunt near the highways, but decided against it. After all, he'd already been shot at once…
He wandered down the road with his thumb out, waiting for someone to drive along, and hopefully stop. And that's exactly what happened. It was a large truck. And on the side of it were the two most beautiful words the traveler had ever seen. Little Debbie.
The driver seemed extremely friendly, and sympathetic to the traveler's troubles. He handed him a big box of ho-hos, and the traveler nearly cried. "My name's Roy" said the driver amiably, "how bout you?" The traveler quickly swallowed his first bite of the ho-ho and wiped the melted chocolate on his pants and held out his hand towards the driver. "My name's Welstein" he said. Roy smiled and shook his hand. "Pleased to meet you Welsein. You have a first name?" The traveler smiled weakly. "Yeah. Um, Ghost." Roy looked at him with a sideways smirk. "Ghost huh?" Ghost nodded. "Yeah, that's my real name."
They talked for a little bit, and their conversation seemed to fade. Roy seemed a nice guy, but aside from Ghost's misadventure, there was little to talk about. The two had practically nothing in common aside from a generally nice demeanor. After a while, Ghost noticed that Roy had a couple of empty bottles next to him. Still, though, he seemed to be driving well enough. Roy turned on the air conditioning after a while, and Ghost was surprised that he hadn't done so sooner, given the unbearable heat. The AC turned out to be a double-edged blessing. The air coming from the vents, while cool, smelled horrible. Still, it was better than being so freaking hot, he thought. He placed a little packet of ho-hos on top of the vent on his side of the dash, in order to cool it so that the chocolate wouldn't be so sticky. After a few minutes, he unwrapped the package, and opened his mouth wide. He could immediately taste the foul vapors from the air vent, so he put his ho-ho down, waiting until he got used to the smell before he would take a bite.
The smell of gasoline in his mouth and nose began to itch and tingle, and he felt the sneeze creeping up from a mile away. He found a tissue box on the floor, and prepared himself. He breathed in and out slowly, as it bubbled up, creating an unbearable tension in his sinuses, until the tension released itself in a powerful sneeze, and before he realized it, he had fallen through the truck, and had slid sideways through the asphalt and into the desert sand off the shoulder of the road, and was now buried up to his neck. And there, sitting on top of the sand, six inches in front of his nose, like a slap in the face, was the opened packet of ho-hos he had just tried to eat. His thirty seconds were up. He was back in the moment, and the moment was seriously fucked up.