Essay on On the Road

Submitted By roshelka
Words: 1440
Pages: 6

There Can Never Be Enough Love
Even on the road, Sarah talked too much. You would think that somebody with so little energy would take a rest and doze off for a few hours, but of course that never happened. Sarah wanted to know everything about Tony; how he was feeling, what he was thinking, and how his daily events had affected him. Tony loved Sarah; the married couple of 5 years clicked right at the start. They met during their college years, Sarah a freshman and Tony a year ahead. Mutual friends set them up on a blind date which rarely worked, but happened to be effective for the two.
Tony’s hand-watch ticked as if to announce, ‘it is a quarter to eleven’, and Sarah was already telling Tony about her mother’s health issues and how worried she was; as usual Tony was drifting off into a different train of thought. He started wondering about whether he’d filled up the gas tank this morning, and after a quick glance at the small red arrow twitching towards “EMPTY”, questioned his memory. He tapped his index finger lightly on the steering wheel and faintly hummed to himself…
“…And you know how worried I get don’t you? She should’ve written, am I right? …Tony? Are you even listening-“
“Sweetheart, we need to stop at a gas station; I forgot to fill the tank.”
“Alright, and I need to take care of some lady business while we’re there.”
After a few minutes of driving along the road, a marquee came into view. In big white letters, “Welcome to Silver Creek” was painted onto the rusty, stained metal. The pole supporting the sign was slightly bent and standing on an angle, suggesting that it’d been abused. Sarah shuffled her hand in the front compartment, pulled out a map, and studied it; she squinted her eyes and bit her lip, tracing her finger along a red line Tony had marked earlier as their travel guide.
“Right here… about two miles ahead.”
They drove in silence, listening only to the purr of the car as it moved past gravel laid out on the route. When they finally got to the gas station, Tony parked the car in one of the open spaces. Watching Tony fill up the tank, Sarah calmly climbs out of her seat. She takes a deep breath, frantically looks around, and swiftly walks back to the car door. Shallow breaths and a crease between her brows immediately follow her sudden restlessness.
“Babe, where’s the restroom?”
“Why don’t you go ask inside the store?”
As Sarah steps into the store, the little bell attached to the door rings and announces of her visit. The obese clerk peeks his eyes to meet her own and apathetically brings them back down to his newspaper.
“Excuse me sir, is there a restroom I can use?”
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The clerk glances into the back corner of the store and nods at a door marked “Restrooms”. Sarah thanks him and steadily makes her way back. Outside the store, Tony decides it isn’t such a bad idea to join Sarah and so he locks the car and saunters into the deli.
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‘It’s been a while since Tony left..’ thought Sarah, ‘I wonder where he’s gone.’ She was leaning against the passenger door with both her arms and legs crossed insouciantly. ‘As a matter of fact, there hasn’t been a single person or car present at the gas station in what seems like at least half an hour..’ Sarah decided to go look for her Tony and make sure he was in one piece. Inside the store, the clerk claimed with untenable certainty that her husband left about 15 minutes ago.
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‘I know she wants a child now, at least I think she does… she always talks about her sister’s baby boy and how much she adores him… surely it’s just family-affection… wait a second, how did I end up here? What is this place?’ Tony felt the blood in his veins heat and quicken their