PREMONITION | SHORT STORY

I give you another one of my stories, titled UNDER THE CROSS.

The story was previously published in my first collection of short stories Feelings in Staccato: The book of stories.

UNDER THE CROSS — Part 1

The truck cabin had been recently cleaned: no food scraps, nothing in the ashtray, no dust on the dashboard. Despite the cleanliness and the sickly-sweet scent of the car freshener dangling from the rear-view mirror, the stale smell of sweaty upholstery remained, and she found that she didn't mind it as much as she had expected. She preferred to sink back into herself and enjoy the scent — his scent — which lingered on her.

He'd arrived late the previous evening, so late that she'd nearly given up waiting for him. He drove trucks up and down the country for a living, surviving from town to town on whatever food he could find, but he liked homemade stews. After days on the road, her place was a lighthouse in the night — a lighthouse with a good kitchen, in which she liked to cook for him. Last night he hadn't wanted the food; he'd been hungry for something else. The type of man who cleaned his nails regularly and wore a different shirt each day, he'd gone straight to the shower. Afterwards he came to bed, towel wrapped around his waist and still dripping wet; he couldn't wait any longer.

Even though their friendship was a six-month affair, the previous night had only been their second time together in bed. The first time around, he'd been shy, gentle, thoughtful, and cautious. Last night, she'd been pleasantly surprised by the earnestness of his desire.

They had only had a couple of hours of sleep when they began their long drive to the county where his hometown was, his truck loaded with several tonnes of bananas.

'Are you sure your parents will be okay with me staying over?'

She had a few days' leave due and she hadn't wanted to be apart from him after last night, so she'd joined him on the drive to his hometown, but second thoughts nagged at her now.

'It won't be a problem. Just try not to swear in front of them. They're a bit old-fashioned,' he said, eyes briefly turning to her, then back to the road in front of him. 'Besides, they won't be around us for too long. Whenever I'm with someone, they never leave their room.'

'Do you often take lady friends home?'

He rubbed his beard. 'Jealous?'

The headlights of a car coming in the opposite direction highlighted the sharp handsomeness of his features and his long fingered and elegant hands. His broad shoulders were well shaped, and his arms were thick, the strong arms of a man who — at least until recently — had been keeping in shape. Once an engineer in a field where he was no longer needed, now a truck driver. Spending his time on the road had given him a bit of a belly, but he was entrancing, nevertheless. He turned the wheel with the same poise as a conductor waving his baton. Seeing him like this made her realise the sudden depth of her feelings.

By dawn, they'd already covered a third of the distance. He drove silently, focused, while she stared out the window at the craggy mountaintops with her eyes heavy and her mind slow. Through the fog that rose over Caraiman Peak, she could see the Heroes' Cross, a giant metal frame with hundreds of lightbulbs on it. It was always lit at night and during poor weather, always visible from hundreds of kilometres away, and always looking down upon the rest of the world. For a moment, the cross seemed like an omen, but she shook her head to dispel such weird thoughts.

She snapped out of her daze and suddenly became aware of the winding two-lane mountain road, the tight curves, and the steep cliff next to the road covered in a heavy net to hold back rocks and tree roots. Past the other lane was a sheer drop into a deep, forested valley. Her heart tightened with worry but when she looked at him, he clearly wasn't concerned about the mountain or the drop, so she decided to keep her worry to herself.

He drove around a bend too fast, and his truck slid into the other lane; she winced as another truck, coming towards them fast, honked impatiently. He quickly righted the truck, bristling when the other driver sped past with his middle finger up, no doubt shouting obscenities.

He resented any remarks about his driving. His colleagues, all drivers with a lifetime's experience running trucks, took every opportunity to tease him about his useless engineering degree. It irritated him and sometimes made him a dangerously competitive driver. Unexpectedly, she was on the alert now. She straightened herself and got ready to pay more attention to the road.

I hope you are properly entertained because… part 2 is on the way…

Until then, all the best and stay safe!

Thank you 🤟🤟🤟🤟🤟