He woke up with a weird feeling in his stomach. It was feeling of emptiness and the neutral-everyday feeling. Today he was going to lose something, or better said, several things in one blow.
His travel partner would be leaving in the afternoon and pursue other adventures without him.
His partner in crime was throwing in the towel with his mob and going to join another one.
His co-pilot was quiting and looking for another vessel with an unknown destination to navigate.
After an epic journey from Adelaide to Perth, stopping off at the epic Flinders Ranges, eating random meats, checking out Australia's best beaches in WA, driving through the Nullarbor in a vehicle 34 years old, Amy was going to jump on a train and head back East that afternoon.
He gets a bit stressed because he doesn't want to be the one to make her late to the airport. He doesn't eat any breakfast, and is on stand-by until she gives the green light. After some time, she's almost ready to go, she just needs some last minute supplies. The young man drives her to Coles to get some food for her 2 day train ride, where he himself gets a banana to make sure he isn't totally out of it when he's driving the car on the ever so busy highway.
Once they get back to their temporary home, the girl and guy work together and throw all of her gear into the Vehicle of Awesomeness. The home that they both shared for the past 17 days, both of them had mixed feelings going through them. She says good-bye to the people she had recently met, and jumps into her old home for the final leg of this chapter in her book of adventures she's been writing in her heart and mind for Australia. She takes the iPod and wants to play her two favorite songs on it, as if she were writing the final sentence for sitting in the car, and the music was the punctuation. She only finds one of the songs.
30 minutes later, they get to the train station. They are almost pushing the clock. The driver can't seem to find any parking, so he just ignores all of the signs, and parks half of his car on the sidewalk, against traffic, not caring of the possible consequences of his actions since he won't be there for long anyway.
He feels awkward. He thinks he knows the feelings, but he just tries to suppress them, trying to use the skill of shutting down his emotions he's acquired from his childhood. It's hard, very hard.
He succeeds. He starts being the positive guy he normally is, thinking - no, knowing that everything in his world is just fine. The two youths go to the check-in counter and throw in the girls large backpack, not saying very much in the process, mere idle chit-chat.
Now they have to find the girls cart, cart R. It was only a hundred meters from where they were standing, and start going there. Still some small talk. She realizes she forgot one of her towels in the house. "Oh well," she concludes.
The train conductor tells the two that they have 10 minutes before the trains starts locking up and prepares its final procedures before departing.
Both of them look at each, not really knowing what to say. The boy takes a photo of the girl with her camera, standing in front of the sign plastered on the side of the train.
She tells him that her time with him was something she will never forget, it was truly a unique adventure for her, on all levels. He doesn't know what to say.
They embrace one another one last time, and she pulls out two photos of her self that the man had taken of her, and a letter. She tells him not to read it now, but once he gets back home.
She boards the train and he walks back to the train, not even looking back, since the carts had tinted windows and because he knows it doesn't help the separation.
Gets back in his car and starts feeling something in throat. He knows what it is, but dismisses it and goes back to his innate instincts of suppression. He knows what he has to do, he has to distract himself until it's all over. He turns the key half way to get the stereo going, and puts on a playlist he titled
Fast & Furious. It has all of his favorite fast paced rock songs, like
Fall of Troy - F.C.P.R.E.M.I.X and
Kiss the Cop - Canadian Radar. It gets him thinking of other things.
On his way back on the highway, he's thinking about what's happened and his emotions. Try to see it from a 3rd person perspective and not trying to feel them. "Repco in 200m" He follows the sign to a car parts store. He's disconnected and suppressed it all. It took less than 15 minutes.
Later in the evening, after having hunted down some parts, he looks at the letter he received, along with the two photos. He doesn't read the letter, and puts down the photos and occupies his mind with other thoughts. He wonders how healthy it is to do what he does. He read that you should not do it, but he cares about not hurting on the inside, because he knows it can be worse than having your eyes ripped out or being slammed into the ground and tearing the cartilage in your chest. Pains he welcomes, if that's the cost of not feeling pain inside.
He reads the letter the next day, late in the evening. He reads it like he was reading a report he reads at work: heartlessly. Once he's done, he folds it up and does something else.
The follow days he applies for jobs, meets friends from Tasmania, helps someone buy a car, goes to a Henry Rollins show, and fixes a laptop that is beyond ruins. Still he doesn't really know how to feel about it all.
Is he heartless?
Does he miss her?
Was there something there?
How much of friend did they become?
Questions bouncing in his head. He ignores them and tries to solve problems which really concern him, like how is he going to get money to eat, where is he going to get a job, what will his next step be.
He ignores his heart and the potential pain it could be in.
He's blank.
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