On a Country Road

Seething, burning, stinging sunlight. The road ahead wavers in living heat. The sun bakes through boots and socks, jeans, and a tattered chambray shirt, scorching the pate, neck, shoulders, and forearms of the man who walks. Slowly, ploddingly, feeling every degree of the heat, he moves across the space. The road cuts through the wastes of corn and tobacco, and he moves upon the road, one with it, not connected to it by more than one foot at a time, and yet always there, always moving in one direction, always shambling doggedly.

It need not be the depths of brutal July. He is there in the rains of late September, when the first tinges of color strike the leaves and the verdant stalks of corn have faded to golden, rustling, papery applause at his passing. He is there on the coldest mornings, when the world is blinded white by snow and cutting winds. Cars pass. Farmers tend their fields. Trees grow and fall and sprout again from their roots. The man moves across the landscape, one step by one step, slowly, achingly, bent with weariness, always moving and yet ever there, caught between destination and departure, like Xeno’s Paradox made real.

I once saw a rattlesnake cross that road. I had a flat tire, and I pulled over into the grassy shoulder on a hot day in August, sweating already, so I could change out for a spare, and I saw the man in the distance walking toward me. He doesn’t seem to see me, and he doesn’t rush to help me. That’s okay. I can do this. 

I set out my tools, looking both ways to see if another car or truck will pass. That’s when I hear it. The buzzing, whining, rattling of a fat and ill-tempered snake as it fights across the fiery asphalt. I see the man approaching and the snake moving, and it seems to me that neither sees the other. I raise my hands and shout, but my voice falls dead in the stifling heat and humidity. It is so hot. The man does not look my way. The snake continues its slow progress. 

Off in the deep distance, a faint band of grey rises over the corn. A cooling wind kicks through the supple blades of the plants. I feel a deep desire for the cooling of the world into fall and winter. A storm seems to be building up out there on the horizon. I don’t want to be caught by a downpour. I wonder, in the back of my mind, if the man has shelter that he will find when the hail and lightning fly.

Thinking then of the snake and of the man, I step away from my truck and move toward him, once again yelling to get his attention.

 His face is a mask of faded features, blurred by the distance and the heat. The road gently undulates, snakelike, courting the heat of the day, and sending all in its path into shimmering obscurity. At one point between us, where the road dips a little, it shines and seems to fill with silver water. In the surface of that shining mirror, I see the man walking reflected in it, as if he stood by the edge of a pond. Mesmerized by this illusion, I stop, irrationally hoping to avoid getting my boots wet. My head feels heavy, slow, muzzy with the burdensome, sticky, hazy heat. I shout again, and I see that suddenly, the man is looking toward me. A tiny change in the focus of his attention; the slightest uptick of his head, and I feel his eyes on me, even from this far. The snake, I shout to him and point. The buzzing intensifies. Here is a fever dream, as my head feels wobbly and pained with the oppression. Faint, far off, a storm is building. I can hear the almost silent rumble of it. The wind kicks up again, and the corn stalks wobble. 

 The breeze brings with it a cooling, and my head clears a bit. The man is still walking toward me. He’s grown taller and clearer in the feverishness of this strange afternoon.

 When he stoops to catch up the snake, I don’t see it so much as feel it. He never misses a stride. He just bends, birdlike and in one smooth motion, betraying his apparent age, grabs the massive serpent and sends it flying over his head and into the fields. He has a moment, where he casts his head back over his shoulder to see the arcing path of its flight into the corn, and then looks forward and at me again. I see his hands. They are moving, not just in the swinging of his stride, but his fingers and palms are flashing, rigid and then straight, bent and then curved. Is he trying to show me something?

 I look about, to see if there are any others out here on this desperate road, but no one stirs. Just me, and him, and my hobbled truck. I go back, the danger averted, for now, affix my spare to the axle and place my tools back. I glance the whole time at the man, and though he never stops walking, he only gets a little closer each time. He should have been here by now, I think. He is toying with me. His hands flashing symbols, his feet clattering on the hot blacktop. He should have been here by now.

 Thunder echoes now, overhead, a great crack swells as it echoes through the canyons of cloud and light. My tire is fixed, and I’m in the cab of my truck. I have rolled up my windows in preparation for the coming hail and lightning. The man, now as a reflection in my mirror, comes walking. He walks and walks, and he is always here and never. I see him and I think of offering him a ride. He will be here soon, and I can ease his back and his tight legs and his rolling gait and give him the comfort of a truck out of the weather and offer him a ride to any place, and give him food or shelter.

 Then he is alongside. Staring, breathing, his hands on my door. I wind down the window, and I see him as he is. He is seamed and weatherbeaten, lank hair hanging in a frame of his grizzled face, set mouth, high, proud forehead, long, powerful fingers, gesturing, flexing, forming those fingers into signs and sigils that I both know and hate, understand and fear.

 He never says anything to me. He never moves, but to make those gestures of ancient, archaic magicks. He nods and I nod and then I see that he his laughing, himself in the driver’s seat of my truck, and I am on the outside and the symbols and gestures have left me. He drives off, cackling, watching me in the watery reflection of the slick, rainy mirrors of my truck. He waves and cackles, and I am here.

 And I am here, walking. On this road. Under this sky. In these fields. In the heat. In the rain. Walking. In all weather. In all moments of time. It was him, and now it is me. Walking.

 Walking.

 Walking ... forever ...