By Camila Bonilla

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The melting of ice in lemonade. The feeling of watching yourself from the outside as reality begins to unfold. The moments that occur after impatience.

I stayed outside that night. I imagined myself, over and over again, saying those words. My lips moved around the air, barely exhaling my desire in a hot wisp. I imagined myself. Walking down the porch, and over to the red pickup. It was too dark to see the steps, now. I might trip and fall. I got bored tonight. I bet my lips were pink now, instead of red, from all the fidgeting and imagining things. I did that a lot, when I got in my head. 

The lot beyond me mostly consisted of dry, grassy plains that never rolled romantically like in the pictures. Just a vast space, where you could see exactly what was ahead of you at all times. Sometimes I got scared when the tufts rustled, and then excited because something would finally be coming for me. It was always a rabbit. 

But when the sun came down, I wondered how anything even ever existed at all in that swallowing darkness. I could reach out and start to dissipate in the black. I imagined running straight into there and falling victim to the murk. 

If I stood on the roof, I would be able to see small luminescence dotting the large pastoral in the form of passing cars, and usually never homes. Cars never stopped, only kept moving and passing through. I resonated with this fact, and did not blame them. 

I was sitting for three hours. The glass jar next to me collected water from melted ice, traces of lemon seeds and thick pulp gathering at the bottom. Everything I had spent so long stringing together that morning unraveled. I felt too shameful to walk back inside, with my blue dress and smudged lipstick. I passed the kitchen, and over to the buzzing fridge. I heard John Denver playing inside on the cassette player, and imagined my mom knocked out on the stained couch, television fluorescence moving on her face. I know for a fact that my parents used the same player, and rocking to the twang. I knew his face, from pictures, that scruffy beard tucked tightly into her shoulder as they swung around. You could almost believe it to be true love. 

When did things go from dancing to shuffling around feet to sitting down to sleeping forever? Did people still go dancing? 

I hated to sit down. A gust of wind picked up my hair. The current remained a gentle push on my skin, an encouragement. I stood up. 

I did not fall down the porch steps when I walked down, in the dark. Anti-climatic nevertheless, but I still felt myself whispering the words as I made my way onto the road. All the way to the main highway. I sat down on the curb outlined by a thicker line of rocks. The air now whipped my cheeks with every passing vehicle. Maroon Toyota. Gray Land Rover. Silver Buick. They rolled right over the two yellow lines that lead to enigmatic darkness. 

The red pickup was not coming for me. I realized this. 

I put my thumb out. If I leaned forward just an inch, the wheels could tear a chunk of it. I kept my hand there, barely brushing the vehicles. I stayed a moment, maybe a couple of minutes before a yellow car, which I did not know the name of, only that it looked like a city cab from the pictures, slowed down and came to a stop after where I sat. The right door popped, and slowly turned from its hinge. 

I imagined myself from the outside; standing up, and my face becoming illuminated by the tiny lights inside. I imagined myself sliding inside the car; my hair becoming sifted into all the right places, once out of the wind’s way. I imagined myself speaking; my smudged red lips, opening into a perfect circle and my front teeth barely showing in all the right places. I did all of these things, and hoped that it was okay. 

The man inside the car gave me no confirmation of any of those things, or whether they played out in reality the way they did in my head. He only raised his eyebrow, sparse and patchy on his young face, then nodded towards the seat when I hesitated. Hesitation was not a part of my imagination. 

The car jerked forward as soon as I closed the door. It ran fast. Over the thick, yellow lines, and with a slight surprise, I realized that now the lines ran under me, instead of me going outside to see them static on the black concrete. Then looking at all of the cars, leaving and passing and never stopping for me. My imagination has morphed into a blurry haze. When I looked at the man next to me, his hands almost looked like they were melting into the wheel. I was afraid he’d lose balance, but the car never shifted away from the lines. They continued unfaltering, electric and bright. 

Process

I wrote this after listening to a song by Father John Misty. I forgot which one, but I felt like writing this when I did.

I just kind of wrote this on a whim. I liked the feeling of desolation, and the feeling of mystery in response to this. Mystery built on your own accord. Even though I wouldn’t have done the same things as the character I wrote, her agency makes her interesting.