Loreless

Headlights

Billy climbed painfully to his feet. Rubbing his hip and checking left and right for any other vehicles, he strode uncertainly to the centre of the highway. A single rust coloured feather floated down and came to rest on one of the dividing lines on the road. Billy stooped down and carefully picked it up. He closely scrutinised it but there was nothing unusual about it. It was a perfectly ordinary feather. He slipped it into the back-pocket of his stonewash jeans. He turned back to face the roadhouse and was shocked to see that just like Pidgin, it had also disappeared. He felt a surge of panic rise up in him. He swung around frantically and tried to get a bearing on his surroundings. In the bright starlight and with his eyes having become accustomed to the dark, he could clearly make out the curve of a road. He couldn't tell if it was the same stretch of road that he had previously been standing on or a new one. Apart from the highway there were a few lone trees and some low bush scrub, and that was about it. He realised now more than ever that he truly was in the middle of nowhere.

"What the hell is going on?" Billy thought.

He began to wonder if he was functioning in the real world or that maybe at any moment he would wake from a dream. He pinched himself really hard on his forearm. The pain was definitely genuine and had the added effect of restarting the throbbing in his head.

"Nope, that feels pretty real," he said aloud trying to reassure himself, but in doing so startled himself with his own voice.

In the distance he heard a vehicle approaching.

"Better not be another truck," he muttered.

Listening to its noise he was reasonably sure that it was something significantly smaller. He waited in the centre of the road and watched as the headlights approached. As the car neared he began to wave wildly, but it didn't seem to be slowing down. He began to yell loudly, squinting at the piercing headlights. The driver saw him at the last minute and swerved. Billy stood anchored to the ground, petrified. The vehicle missed Billy by a couple of metres, one set of wheels left the hard tarmac and buried themselves in the soft shoulder, causing it to careen sideways. With tyres screeching in protest, the car slid to a stop facing the opposite direction from which it had come amid a cloud of dust and smoking rubber. The cars engine died with a splutter.

Billy was shaking violently but inwardly relieved that he was no longer alone. He shielded his eyes from the headlights, and after composing himself, walked slowly towards the vehicle.

He called out.

"Are you ok?"

The sound of a pair of male voices came from within the vehicle, one of them cursing loudly.

"What the fuck!"

The drivers door swung open with a loud squeal and Billy heard someone wrenching themselves out of the car.

"Ya idiot, ya could getcha self killed standing in the middle of the road like that!"

"Sorry, sorry, I'm a bit lost," replied Billy timidly.

"That has to be the understatement of the century," came the irritated reply, "Ya scared the shit outta me. Whatcha doing out here?"

Billy pondered the question for a moment.

"To be honest I have no idea," he said.

"What'd he say?" A gruff voice inquired from within the vehicle.

"Think he's on drugs or someth'n," turning to Billy, "so ya just dropped out of the sky then?"

Billy considered telling the facts that he knew, but decided it would be wiser to keep them to himself. At the moment extracting himself from his present predicament was his first priority and further ostracising his rescuers wouldn't help his cause.

"Just got dumped here and don't wanna go into it right now."

"Girl trouble," the driver remarked wirily to his accomplice who retorted with a snort. Both men then broke into a cackle.

Billy sensed that apart from the initial shock, both of them were relatively blasé about their close shave with a serious accident. He saw his opportunity.

"Ahem, can you give me a lift?"

The laughing abruptly stopped and the two men started to quietly discuss the situation. Billy stood for a moment feeling very exposed in the bright light. He tried unsuccessfully to make out what they were saying. Eventually the discussion ended and the driver spoke up.

"Ok mate, we can tell y'r in a fix. We're on our way home and ya can come with us. We'll find ya somewhere to crash and sort the rest out in the morning."

"Thanks a lot," said Billy gratefully.

He realised that up to this point he hadn't even laid eyes upon his rescuers. They had been hidden behind a wall of light. He walked over to the drivers door and was slightly surprised to see a tall thin Aboriginal man standing in the glow of the cars headlights. His skin was the deepest tone of black.

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