Malachi twists the throttle and the bike rumbles in the shade of the cottonwood. Karen watches, stunned, as he taps the bike into first and engages the clutch. The bike and her boyfriend roll away, and she steps after them not knowing if she should call out his name or kick the both of them over. He quickly gets out of range of either.
Karen continues to walk in his wake like a leaf sucked up behind a semi. She stops when she reaches the middle of the two-lane highway. She watches his black silhouette separates from the highway as the wavering heat of the road turns him into a mirage and still as the slope of the long slow hill drops him completely from view.
“Well, shit.”
Karen circles on the New Mexican highway and finds herself alone from horizon to horizon. She walks back to the feeble roadside rest area. Stepping from the asphalt to the gravel she twists her ankle.
163 words on day 795