Scattered Pages: Katherine

I'm slowing down a little, I can't see the road anymore. The car slides sideways and I hear grass and weeds slapping the door. It's almost stopped now and my fingernails bite into the palm of my hand as I grip the wheel. Thud, something hard strikes the side of the car it stops. My head hits the window and the car lurches up on two wheels and teeters, deciding whether to kill me.

Then falls back onto its wheels in a carnival ride bounce.

I hear hissing and the engine's stopped. There is a cloud of dust outside and two white pencils of light try to pierce it.

Silhouetted in the dust I see a tall man with wavy hair and a rifle walk towards me. I want to run, can't open my door, can't scream, can't move, can't think. And then, just metres from my door he looks right at me and raises the rifle.

'Crack' and steam billows from the front of my car, 'Crack' and the front right of the car drops with a sudden lurch. 'Crack' and the back drops to match it. I see his smiling face outside my window and the gun pointed right at me. His mouth forms one word, "slut" and then he's gone.

----

I sit there for god knows how long, my hands cramp and I realize I'm still holding the wheel. I'm panting and my chest hurts. Blood tastes tangy in my mouth. I have to get out to spew. My gut knots I close my mouth against it. Swallow it back down.

I can move again. My legs scramble and I launch backwards out the passenger door landing on my arse in the grass beside the car. I open my mouth and vomit.

And vomit, and vomit and vomit. It just won't stop and as I heave the semen of six strangers leaks out of me in little burps. I feel so low, so filthy right now. Eyes closed hard I see all the things I've done. Not just those men at the roadhouse but every man in the last two years I've let use me like a toilet. It's somehow right to purge this way so I spew for all I'm worth till every last memory leaves me.

It's time to visit Katie again. She's so dull. But I really need her now.

So, as the sun rises on the first day of my brand new life you can find me beside a lonely stretch of road with not a car in sight; smelling like vomit, semen dribbling down my thighs, make up streaked by tears standing beside a wrecked car scrabbling through my luggage searching for some valium, zyprexa, epilim, prozac, effexor, something, anything.

That was exactly how He found me anyway.