Separation (4)

A great flaming ball of apprehension hung in place of the sun this morning, its beams serving only to make us anxious as they beckoned us towards the east coast. There were already three people at our hitching spot - dudes, nonetheless - and me and Squanch couldn't hitchhike until they were gone.

Hitchhiking rule #237: If a group of odd-numbered people separates for hitching efficiency, the individual always reserves the right to leave first.

Me and Fernweh breathed sighs of relief. Finally - we could separate. We can only ever spend so much time with each other - a couple weeks leaves us tearing each other's throats out. Stifled smirks and sullen "bye"s were our parting gifts.

A parting embrace can heat the embers of a dying friendship;

smoke signals communicate what spirits are afraid to say.

How often can "I love you," be an insult ?

How many times can smiles be reflected as threat?

The three others at the spot told us of their plans to hitchhike to the nearest train yard and hop from there to Halifax; we exchanged phone numbers and enthused plans to meet up at the train yard and have a five-man crew to command the next train to Halifax.

They got picked up soon after and we never saw them again. Hell, we didn't even remember the name of the town they'd told us the train yard was in - cities named in foreign tongues seem to avoid ever crystallizing into solid memory.


We commandeered their spot but were quickly beckoned to the adjacent parking lot by a cop. God damn! Would we ever be allowed out of Quebec? Rain, cops, and drugs had so far sucked us into staying in Quebec for days longer than we'd planned - it seemed the stronger our will was to leave, the more that shit kept us glued to the Quebecois soil. We trudged through an overgrown ditch to receive our reprimand, but the officer's smile spoke not of malice.

He stood next to a bubbly old lady who was babbling away in French with the giddy energy of a child. The officer translated: she wanted to take us as far as Quebec City.  Awesome! We jumped into her car and proceeded to stifle ourselves in awkwardness.

Traveling with a woman who barely spoke english was a bit of a detriment, for a few reasons: first, conversation was limited and strenuous- forcing small talk, even without a language barrier, is boring enough. Secondly, the limited conversation didn't provide enough informtaion to judge whether or not the woman was a serial killer and if we should tuck and roll (though her excited attempts at English spoke with an ingenuity that said otherwise.)

Thirdly, her inability to really understand what we were saying left us stranded in Quebec City, surrounded by pretentious French douchebags who took a sadistic pleasure in the fact that we clearly didn't know what we were doing, where we were doing it, or how to do it properly.