Beginnings - Highway 49

It was a lonely silent stretch of road, miles from human existence. Six lanes of sun baked asphalt, divided in the middle by a shallow depression of dirt and weeds. The road was crowded on the east by sharp red rock cliffs and protrusions guarded by lazy diamond back rattlers sunning themselves on the numerous outcroppings.

The west side of Highway 49 stretched out onto a wasteland of pale cream colored sand in hills that rolled like an ocean of death. The sparse vegetation along the barren wind-scorned landscape remained brown and withered, hugging the ground for protection from the heat of the searing gusts.

It was here that time seemed to be ignored, change to the landscape only occurring through the erosion of the wind and the sun’s extreme temperatures. It was the devil’s playground, hot and cold, death was life and life was death. Only the strong and cunning creatures survived. I was neither of those.

I awoke slowly, stiffly, vague to a foggy world of pain, pain from every joint and muscle, pain from scraps and cuts along my arms and face, pain from a badly sprained and swollen ankle and four cracked ribs, pain from being thrown from the back of a speeding truck in the dead of night, as the temperature tickled the upper thirties.

Sand clogged my nose and throat, covering my mat of blood soaked hair. My hands were underneath the weight of my prone body and I struggled to pull them free. Despite jarring shocks of pain sent through my system, I shivered uncontrollably.

They had left me in jeans, old Nike jam tennis shoes and a torn and blood soaked blue Cowboys tee shirt. The chilling temperatures overnight had left my toes and ears numb.