Day 32.

description of a place, written to the song Shut Up And Let Me Go by the Ting Tings

"Shut Up and Let Me Go"

Distracted by the radio, she veers into three lanes to exit the freeway, dancing from the neck down in the seat, smacking the wheel. She glances over her shoulder, the toss of her blond hair a flash of light.
She got out in the parking lot of the town's one gas station, slammed the car door, bumping it off the hinges. The car she left running, music thudding, not trusting the air conditioning to start again in 104-degree weather. This, she thought, was the asshole of the universe. It had to be here from which all heat emanated, rising from the asphalt in dry heaves.
When, four hours ago, she had begun driving, she had pictured stopping in a town big enough to get lost in, find a new beau and forget the old. This was nothing even close, but her body demanded a pee and a stretch break. She had decided to be both Thelma and Louise, and she walked like it. Her walk was something street buskers with voices like cigarettes and honey noticed. They drummed buckets for her, turning heads as she walked by. They saw signs of her as the desert runaway, road-trip vagabond. Her shoes added to this: stilettos so high her heels hit the ground whole minutes before the rest of her feet did. Under them, the asphalt choked and churned, melting and reforming. The town had permanence to its heat: there was a feeling of emptiness, as if the substantial part of the town had evaporated long ago. The mirages have mirages, and lizards watch all from under rocks. On the rare day the clouds emerged, they seemed bleached and desperate, as if the water drops could only survive by sticking together. They did: before a storm, the tone of the wind became irritated. The people of the town could feel it in their belly's belly.
Red filtered their world: red ground, red sunset sky, everywhere red with lipstick, seemingly leaked off the bright mouths of the go-go dancers. It was a good place to pick a fight. Inconsequential, like it could be just another ghost town in a moment.
Yes, she belonged here. For now, she would stay.