Off You Go
A story of getting lost to find what matters
We were on our dream road trip to the Victorian highlands. Eli had picked a retreat for quiet reverie - where clouds would float by the window. We'd chosen the off-season to avoid the snow rush. Fatigued from the cusp of city life, we wanted to focus on internally remodelling, anchor ourselves to renewal and find strength from within. A lot of veiled promises were at stake.
I should have seen this coming - the GPS stopped working. It was a rainy day. Heavy showers had been pouring hard since we'd hit the freeway. I decided to drive a few kilometers slower than the speed limit—visibility wasn't great, and as usual the heavy trailers in the morning traffic made it so much harder to change lanes. I followed the map to exit from the freeway only to land on a gravel road with no traffic, right when the signal on my phone gave up.
I shrugged, "Should have downloaded the maps on wifi when I had a chance."
Eli was a little nervous too, "What do you want to do now?"
"I don't know if I can go back or if this mud road even goes anywhere - maybe it stops at some creek, by the looks of it."
"Let's give it a few minutes. Take a break. You've been driving for at least two hours."
Being afraid of snakes and this being summer, in the middle of nowhere - I was in no mood to get off from the car. There was a sparse forest of eucalyptus trees all around us. I didn't start the car, but didn't get down either - instead poured some coffee from the flask.
A few minutes later a van showed up. I raised my hand. An old man with merrymaker vibes driving the van stopped by, "Hey! What's up?"
"I think we may be lost - there's no signal here. I don't know if this road connects us to B300, or I am on the wrong way completely."
He started talking, but was very hard to interpret, as accents can sometimes be.
"Fair dinkum, mate ~ no road's a ripper. Right? You've got one that's short and a bit shirty, but it'll get ya there. Then ya got another one that's long as a wet weekend and boring as bat shit, but hey - still gets ya there too. Thing is, roads are like bloody choices, aren't they? Each one just chucks ya onto the next one ~ so ya just gotta keep truckin'. It's not about the road, it's about the whole bloody journey ~ off ya go then, mate."
All I heard was 'off you go'~ and he smiled and drove off, leaving me as clueless as before.
"Did you get any of that?"
Eli shook her head. I started the car with new resolve. Life perpetuates as choices - an open door vs a closed one. We make decisions, riding the emotions that color our volition, but the journey is way more than the destination.
Bonny Dunes, Lake Eildon and the Victorian Alps - of mystery and myth - laid across our unknowns.
Inspired by writing prompts: #vss365 FoxProse #BraveWrite #firewords280 #WeirdMicro #oxjDailyWords #Amatory #dailyprompt #creativewriting #shortstory #flashfiction #microfiction