June Flash Lit 1: The Hiding Place

Silas inhaled.  Dust motes turned into notes in his mind, a tune that rose toward the light, swelled in volume.  There was the smell of leather, and the swell of the car cushions.  He reached out a hand to turn the knob on the radio, twisted from some gospel channel to something wilder.

The top was down and the wind sang in his ears.  It cooled the sweat at his temples, but he could still feel it in the small of his back.  He laid an arm along the window opening.  The metal stung a little with heat as if the flames painted on the car had actual heat.  The speedometer needle prickled up toward 100, but there was no one to clock him and nothing to hit along this straight-shot freeway through the desert.  The cacti threw up their arms at him, but couldn’t even slow him down.  The tumbleweeds huddled next to the barbed wire along the road, wisely choosing not to cross him.

Far ahead of him, there were mountains.  Beyond that, he didn’t know what:  it was hidden.  He suspected that the country on the other side was friendlier, greener, a place with streams and trees and gardens.  Maybe even a place to stop and get a bite to eat and a bed for the night.

The belt snapped the thread of his thought.  Silas found himself back in the garage.  There was the faint tinge of gasoline in the air and the sting of the belt across his bare ass.  His father, not sparing the rod, muttered psalms under his breath.

Silas pressed the imaginary accelerator and sped from the hiding to his own hiding place, his secret place in the rock.