Escape

There was something intoxicating about it, the thrill of the open road. An empty bottle of whisky lay next the him in the car, dulling his senses so that he barely felt the wind rushing through his thinning hair. It was lucky for him that the particular escape route he had found was so remote that nobody else was on the road, or he would have been dead half an hour ago, along with whoever else had been unfortunate enough to be sharing the road with him.

The backdrop would have been breathtaking for anyone more aware of their surroundings. The road snaked through the desert in desperates search of water and the mountains behind him pierced the blue sky, an almost laughably grand feature in an otherwise desolate landscape.

The cherry-red Camaro tore through this picturesque scene, carrying its passenger towards his destination, wherever that was. He was a passenger in his own life, for his destination was as unknown to him as it had been to those he had left behind. And besides, how could anyone with almost as much alcohol in their bloodstream as water possibly claim to be in control of their own senses?

All he knew was that he had to drive. He couldn’t even remember what it was that had made him snap, the darkness had swallowed up the last 36 hours and erased them from his memory, but it had been the final straw that had smashed his boring fucking life into a million pieces. Canvas bag, whisky, car keys, nothing else, not even a phone. There was no way back now, there was blood on his hands, whether he knew it or not, and the devastation he had left in his wake would haunt him for years to come, if he ever cared to remember.

Shoutout as ever to Laura Feasey, and her Literary Lion: Escape prompt.