THE END OF THE ROAD

He finally found the end of the road he'd been travelling down for the past forty years. It had been a long time coming for Chris and the deep sigh he blew out in sync with the swirling late autumn winds indicated just how much it meant to him.

After running from some invisible existential enemy that he'd never properly identified, he finally felt he could now rest and settle down. For years Chris was led to believe in the notion that if you didn't keep moving you were dead. On reflection he realised he'd been all across the globe and never once found peace in any of the many places he'd passed by, and as a consequence of that fact, neither in himself. There had always been the sound of a ticking clock somewhere in the background, or in his mind, like an explosive device about to blow up any minute which was no doubt something to do with having parents who were self-professed anarchists. Maybe it was inevitable that he'd end up inheriting their nomadic, endlessly seeking pathology. They'd always behaved as they were on the run for some crimes they never committed, just wished they had. If Adam and Eve had gotten a VW camper van and turned their backs on Eden in search of another vision of paradise then it would have been his parents who believed that the entire world was their private playground to run riot in.

Even after he went his own separate way at the age of 21 like a hippy walkabout, Chris couldn't shake his habituated compulsion to move from one place to the next. Work on the road was always short term though not as short term as the relationships that lasted about as long as the cash he burned through at the bars he frequented. An alcoholic who sweated out his addiction doing hard labour in places whose names he'd forget as quickly as his short term lovers, Chris had learnt to love the leaving a place more than the arriving, that heady sense of high tailing out of the past without having to stick around to face the consequences.

And yet one consequence finally caught up with him and it fucked him up as bad as one of the many violent brawls he'd had where he'd typically lost a tooth or had his nose broken.

Some say no man ever steps in the same river twice, but for Chris he found himself stepping back in the same town twice and if it hadn't been for his black outs from drinking too much, he might have remembered not to return in the first place and avoided the reality that faced him in the form of a small child.

"You alright there, kid?"

The young boy wearing a dirty, mismtached looking set of thrift store clothes and ignoring the glistening trail of snot running from his nose stared at him as if they had been connected in some past life. It was a little intense for Chris this early in the morning who was nursing a hangover from the lowest circle of hell.

"You belong to someone? Is your mom or pop anywhere around?"

But the boy said nothing and just kept on staring. Something in his grey blue eyes reminded Chris of his own reflection and although he had no sense who the kid was, he wondered why he kept on looking at him with such scrutiny.

"You lost?"

And as he said the words, he felt as if he was saying it to himself somehow.

Not wanting to leave the kid alone in case he was genuinely abandoned, Chris volunteered to go help him find his guardian inside the general supply store.

"Come on, let's go find your mom and dad."

The little kid held his firm hand and followed Chris like a balloon on a string into the store where the sound of 80's pop music suffused the place with a melancholic atmosphere.

Looking toward the check out tills, Chris saw a woman with fiery red hair who looked to be in some distress. Even from a distance he could see that her bank card had been declined and she was desperately trying out other expired cards in her wallet like a croupier with the contactless card reader.

"Is that your mum, kid?" Chris asked the little boy.

The boy nodded solemnly.

"Ma'am. I think you forgot something."

The woman turned to see Chris where recognition for her was instant but not so much for him.

"Indiana Jones. As I live and breathe."

"Huh?"

"I never thought I'd see you again, that's for sure."

The cashier interjected. "Um, miss? Are you paying for this shopping?"

Suddenly Chris remembered where he'd seen the red headed woman before and winced.

"Jenny, right?"

"Right!"

Feeling suddenly guilty about not recognising her at first sight, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of dollar bills and offered it to her.

"Here. Use this to pay for it."

"You owe me more than this, sweetheart. But thanks."

She took it without any shame and paid the awkward looking cashier. Chris then helped her bag up her shopping as he kept an eye on the little boy.

"You always forget small children when you're out shopping?"

"That's rich. Coming from you?"

"How?"

Picking up the two heavy bags of shopping, Jenny looked directly at Chris and smiled.

"He's yours."

Typically, when Chris moved on he got drunk to a point of oblivion in a bid to forget the damage he'd left behind from town to town.

Now he'd returned to a place where he finally had to pay the tab.

The end of the road.

There was just something about that little kid and how vulnerable he looked outside the store with his snot and his intense stare that made Chris feel that he was being held to account by some higher power, call it God, call it karma. All he knew was that he'd come full circle from running away from things and now he had a child that he had somehow miraculously been reunited with, a child he never knew or was too drunk to even know he had a part in creating.

Maybe it was his own self aborbtion that made him think of himself as similarly lost to the kid that day, except he'd always run away all the time because his own parents had made running away a part of their lives, their raison d'être. Sitting in his beat up car, wondering if he should just drive away and leave the small town for dust, he turned over the engine and let it warm up a bit.

But some niggling doubt inside of him, like the sound of a leafless branch scratching against a window gave him pause as he looked at the colourless town from the hills where he was parked.

What he thought, if he did the opposite for once in his life and stood perfectly still, staying in the same place and not moving, letting all the chaos of his restless life come to an abrupt halt? Facing up to consequences felt courageous to Chris, especially as he had grown tired of all the shame he carried with him everywhere like an invisible sack.

He sat with the idea of staying for close to a full hour, meditating on all the pain in his life up until now. Turning on the car radio to help distract his over thinking mind, he was comforted by the rousing, low-fi indie track being played on the local radio station. Perhaps it was because of the music or simply his own self reflection but suddenly Chris felt something shift inside his heart and mind and made his decision right there and then.

Turning the radio off, the ensuing silence that followed his decision to stay was spiritual in a way he hadn't felt since he'd got lost himself one time as a child and got taken in to a pentacostal church by a kind woman whose grace he had never forgotten. Of course, it would take strength and courage for him to kick his stalking demons into touch but the thought of ignoring fate now seemed especially risky and would invite ghosts he knew he wouldn't be able to drink out of his system this time round.

In the past Chris revelled in his godless nihilism, but outside the store that morning with the kid, everything changed. Even merely considering the breaking of the cycle that had imprisoned him for so long felt significant.

All he knew was the desire to see Jenny and the little boy again was greater than his desire to drive away or drink himself to an early grave.

He just prayed he would remain steadfast to both of them and stay firmly and resolutely on the path.