At what point do you question a long road? How many kilometers do you drive without a single change before you think something is off? How many miles upon miles of pavement before you start to consider that you have stumbled upon something strange?
I say this because of what happened to me during my road trip through Manitoba. I grew up in the city and when I moved away for university I decided to keep things the same, moving into the next biggest city in the country. Not because I needed to pursue my field at that school, but because of the city itself. I had always liked the bustle, I know that’s probably uncommon for most people but I always liked how there was something to do at any given moment. I could, on any night, choose fifty different places to go with friends or my girlfriend Sarah.
So, when summer break finally came around and Sarah suggested that we go visit my parents, I thought it was a fine suggestion. The only problem was, Sarah could not ride in an airplane. She always chalked it up to the environmental impact but I knew she was terrified of flying in them. We couldn’t even rent an apartment on any floor above three. Thus, the only way to travel would be to road trip across the country. I think if I knew what was going to happen, I would have forced Sarah to deal with her fear.
I don’t know if you know anything about the geography of Canada, but the space between Vancouver and Toronto is empty. I mean, the first leg of the journey when you are cruising through the mountains is beautiful but for most of the trip, it is nothing but open grassland and farm fields. Nothing but a flat and empty road to drive along for days. But, I loaded up my favorite playlist and we started the long drive back to my hometown.
The first leg of the journey was beautiful. We stopped at a couple popular destinations and national parks and it was fun; but I still had that itch in the back of my mind. I knew that the rest of the road trip would be mind-numbingly boring. For the first couple hours of the drive, it was fine. A flat road as far as I could see ahead, chatting with Sarah and having fun. It was when we pulled over for the night on the empty side of the road when I think it changed. It was a random gravel pull off, completely mundane in appearance, but I think that’s when it went wrong.
The night was peaceful and when I woke up it was already mid-day. A perfect blue sky with no clouds in sight atop a flat green plain for as far as I could see. There wasn’t even any wind blowing through the infinite field. It was just a silent expanse of blue and green. I didn’t think anything of it though and resumed the journey, leaving Sarah asleep in the back of the car. My phone had lost signal with no towns around, so I could no longer use my GPS. I did remember that we would eventually hit a town though, and that’s where I could get directions. I had been driving for 18 hours on the unending road before I encountered another pull off. It hadn’t even looked like time had passed, with the blue sky still just as perfect as it was before. It was weird but your mind doesn’t think of the impossible first. It comes up with logical excuses and reasons for situations that don’t make sense. I just assumed that maybe it was brighter longer in the prairie. Sarah was a worrier but I assured her that the light probably just lasted longer. Given how flat it was, the sun would never blocked out by anything. So we both fell asleep without issue.
The next day was the same. The exact same scene of a silent blue sky on the infinite green earth. I was starting to worry about the car’s dwindling gas. We had not encountered another sign of civilization in two days and the small jerry can I had stashed was also empty now. I pushed forward though, if I kept driving I would eventually find a town. That wasn’t true. After driving for another 16 hours on the road, green grass and blue sky in every direction, the car died.
Sarah was certifiably freaking out now, looking at me for any sense of what to do, and I was not doing well either. I mean, it didn’t make sense. Nothing had changed in 72 hours. It was an impossible situation, but we were in it. How can you experience something impossible? It’s antithetical to reality, you should not be able to experience something impossible. After a short panic attack, I decided that we needed to stay calm.
I looked in every direction, seeing nothing until the curves of the earth stopped my view. The blue and green of the grassland stretching as far as I could see. I told Sarah that it was going to be ok, that we could just ask the next car to come through and we could hitchhike to the next town. We hadn’t seen any other cars on the road though and we both knew that.
We waited in the car. I assume it was for the rest of the day, but time wasn’t really passing. It must’ve have been longer than that, we went through our rations too fast for it to be just a day. Our packed sandwiches and drinks had run out. I flicked at the chicken between my teeth, trying to get every use very last bit of meat. We were both hungry but it looked like Sarah was doing worse than me. I was practically keeping track of the time with the rumbling of her stomach. Every time I would try and forget about our hunger and to think about the meat I had eaten previously, it’s snarl would bring me back to reality. It taunted me. Making me even hungrier, starving for something to eat. It was in a lull when Sarah brought me out of this cycle.
She screamed at me and told me that we would walk to the next town to find help no matter what. I don’t know if it was out of fear or hunger that I caved and decided to leave the car. I know it wasn’t love, we were both too hungry and alone to care about love. So we started walking along the edge of the road, following the gravel in the direction of the nonexistent town.
When I turned around to check our progress I didn’t see the car anymore. Behind was the same as forward. We encountered another pull off just as are legs were giving out and decided to camp there and rest. I was so tired I was able to fall asleep on the gravel easily. I distinctly remember dreaming of oxen, stacked in emaciated piles. The only creature they could feed were the flies that swarmed their shriveled skin. The dream was short lived though as I was suddenly woken up to the sensation of not being able to breath as Sarah’s hands clenched around my throat.
I quickly kicked her in the gut and pushed her off of me before getting to me feet. When I looked in her direction, I knew it was my girlfriend. However, she looked so different that I could hardly think of her as that. It wasn’t like she was crouched in the dark, the midday light perfectly shone on her and showed what she had become. She looked like a starved animal. A weak animal. An animal that could sustain me until I found the town and saved us.
We fought. She bit me, I scratched her, and we wrestled in the gravel for a while. I was stronger though and was able to keep her down. I ate the spoils of my contest, and the meat fed me. So, I kept walking along the road with my newly found energy. I needed to find the next town so I could save us. I don’t really know how far I walked until I passed out on another gravel pullover. I looked up into the infinite blue sky above me and realized that there was no sun, just a perfectly blue day. That’s when I was finally shook awake by a passing truck driver. He had seen me on the side of the road covered in blood. He had assumed I was left out here to die so he had stopped to help me. I was barley coherent so he took me into the next town where I was treated in the hospital for dehydration and exhaustion. It was around a week before the hospital released me.
I tried to get the police to follow me, to take me to where I had left my car or help Sarah. I screamed at them that we had to save her, that she was waiting for me. We couldn’t find either and they shipped me off to my parent’s house in Toronto. They didn’t even arrest me, thinking that I had been hallucinating due to the starvation. They even tested the blood that covered me but had concluded it was unidentifiable. I never found my car but that didn’t concern me.
Sarah never turned up again. The police’s leading theory was that she was kidnapped on our road trip and I couldn’t deal with the stress. But I know they are wrong, the bite marks I suffered still line my body. But most of all, I can still feel her. I still hunger for her, I need to find her and help her. I think about her body. I think about how much I loved her and how much she helped me and the pit in my stomach. However, she didn’t do enough. She didn’t satisfy the primal yearning I feel. My stomach still aches, snarling to be filled. Begging deep in the core of my body.