“I feel so calm on these big, multi-lane roads.”
Autumn and Summer had been sitting in silence for the last fifteen minutes of their drive. The only exchange of noise between them had been their synchronous humming to the various ‘Dad Rock’ melodies playing out of their 2005 Toyota’s speaker. The radio buttons jammed sometime in 2010 and had been stuck on the same radio station since then, forcing them to accustom themselves to the repetitious riffs and patriarchal lyricism of the 1970s. Summer hated it because it reminded her of her dad’s old records. Autumn loved it for the same reason.
“Highways,” Summer replied to Autumn’s sudden exclamation, eyes not moving from the road in front of her. She kept her hands steady on the steering wheel; she had always been a highly responsible driver, much to Autumn’s discontent.
“What?” Autumn turned to Summer, watching as her friend’s eyes darted from the windscreen to the rearview mirror, left side mirror, and back to the front again. No doubt repeating a pattern she had learned from her driving instructor years ago.
“You feel best when you’re on a highway,”
If Autumn hadn’t known Summer for as long as she had, she would’ve thought the woman was completely disinterested in this conversation.
“Sure. I feel so calm on highways.”
A moment of silence once again lingered between the two. Autumn shifted back to stare out of her passenger side window, watching rows of eucalyptus trees whip past her sight.
“That’s weird.”
Autumn began to think that maybe Summer’s toneless replies were more grating than she had previously believed.
“Why is that weird?”
Summer could hear the faintest hint of irritation in her tone.
“Well, most people are terrified of highways. High speeds, being trapped between two cars—or worse, trucks—on either side of you, missing your exit—” Summer almost sang out her morbid collection of high-speed road mishaps as she pushed down her indicator, checked her blind spot, and slid into the middle lane of the highway to overtake a blue Mazda meandering just ahead of them.
“But the potential, Summer, think of the potential!” Autumn exclaimed, half-sarcastically.
“The potential car crash you could be involved in?”
“We are currently experiencing an in-between space and an in-between time, Summer. A chasm between where we once were and where we will soon be.” Autumn smiled widely, spreading her arms ever wider, as if she were trying to embody the chasm itself.
Summer lightly whacked her arm from out of her view. “I told you that David Lynch marathon you did last week would send you loopy.”
“It wasn’t just David Lynch,” Autumn scoffed to herself, though Summer could feel its light-heartedness. “There was some Gus Van Sant too. I started with Lost Highway, then went on to My Own Private Idaho—”
Summer could see Autumn in the corner of her eye, cheesing at her monotonous listing of films that she didn’t care for. Autumn was never anything more than playful in her seriousness—well, until she wasn’t. Summer had a fine line to tread.
“I’m serious though. It’s like, meditative. It’s like I have nothing else to do, nowhere else to be but this highway right now”.
“I guess the passenger would have time for philosophical pondering whilst the driver focuses on not killing them both.” Summer blasted the car horn at a Ford ute driver who had just cut her off.
Autumn ignored her friend’s remark, laying her arm against the windowsill and staring out once again, the skin of her forehead pressed gently against the window’s glass as she watched the clouds. “How nice it would be to just stop everything, sell everything you own, quit your job, buy a cheap but functioning car, and just stay on the roads your whole life. Driving from town to town, staying in local motor inns. Just keeping yourself in a state of motion your whole life.”
“How would you afford it? You can barely afford to survive in Sydney right now, even with a full-time job.”
“I just said I’d sell everything I own.”
“You barely own a thing,” Summer laughed.
“Well, I guess the transition to a nomadic life would be easy then. Anyway, there's always jobs in small towns.” Autumn’s arms slipped from the windowsill and her lap to fold across her chest, a rare display of a defensive action.
“Which brings me to my next retort.” Summer snickered. “You’ve never even been to a small town. Face it, Autumn, you're a city girl. Why do you think you love highways so much? You have concrete running through your veins. Your body runs on crude oil spills and emits hazardous industrial noise.”
“I don’t think I’ve been given a chance to know if I’m a city girl, or a country girl, or an ocean girl or a land girl. A girl’s girl, a boy’s girl—”
“Or even a human at all, perhaps.” Summer half smiled in a quick but clumsy attempt to change the subject. Autumn stuck her tongue out at her very good friend.
“When I’m on a highway, especially this highway, I feel like I could find out who I am. Where could this highway lead me? It feels like it could lead me all around the world and then right back here again. And maybe on my way, along this highway and around the world, I’ll meet all different kinds of people, and I’ll try all different kinds of jobs. And maybe I’ll love some of them, or maybe I’ll hate all of them. And maybe when I come right back here, I’ll realise that here is exactly where I need to be. But how will I know unless I see where the rest of the highway leads first?”
Autumn’s lips parted, ready to continue her rant, before she stopped herself.
What she really wanted to say was: What if I stay on little, narrow backstreets my whole life—you know the ones I mean, like the ones in our suburb? And I learn every little, intricate detail of them, every pothole, every crack, every stop sign. And what if I realise I can’t stand the backstreets? In fact, I hate the backstreets, and I hate the whole suburb, even the main roads. They’re so busy, everyone is always weaving around each other in their huge hatchback cars, and there is traffic everywhere. I think I really, truly need to be on the highway. I need to be on this highway, where the cars keep on moving 90, 100, 110 kilometres an hour! No chance to stop and turn back once you’re on; the only way is forward!
What she said instead was: “Y’know?”
Autumn let out a deep breath that she hadn’t realised she had been cradling within herself. Then she leant her head back into the headrest, letting her eyelids fall shut. Once again, a silence fell between the two of them, other than the tunes dancing out from the radio speakers.
It was Rocky Mountain High by John Denver.
“I like this highway too,” Summer replied, “because I get to drive it every Sunday with you.”
Despite the danger, Summer turned her gaze towards her friend in the passenger seat. She watched her until her eyes fluttered open and shot directly to her own. Summer smiled. Autumn did too, then her eyes began to trail the Honda Civic she could see through the windscreen, darting between lanes at a surely illegal speed.
Summer’s gaze similarly wandered back to the road as she moved one hand from the wheel and onto the windowsill of her open window. The wind whipped her chocolate brown hair behind her—as though at the speed she was driving, she was leaving a shadow of where she had once been a second ago.
