Waving Not Drowning

It's a long drive, up north. Past a myriad of small communities, tiny one horse towns with similar sounding names, ending in brook or hurst or steed. The occasional signs of big box stores and chain  groceries glow in the dark off an exit ramp in the distance. Last chance for food, shelter, gas and family size jars of dijon mustard and 46 rolls of toilet paper for 34 miles. Hawks circle above, banking, soaring, catching updrafts and hovering effortlessly above the treeline. There's rain in the air, a faint shift in barometric pressure. Should've packed a tarp. Should've packed her life, jammed her belongings into boxes and bags and thrown everything she's ever been into the rental car.  Never come back. No real sense of where she's heading or why she's leaving except it's something she can do. Volitional, for now, at least. No set schedule, no dependents, no rhyme nor reason to anything anymore. Despondency, ambivalence. These are foreign words now tatto...

It's a bit too loud and the music is obviously being streamed from a Best of '90's satellite station specializing in one hit wonders and annoying dance remixes. Marky Mark, Jesus Jones. There's no empty solo seat so he places his narrow metal clipboard on the massive communal re-purposed barnboard table surrounded by chrome and naugahyde rotating stools cemented to the ceramic tile. He has ten, maybe twenty, for a proper cup of coffee and this is his preferred haunt. A welcome anomaly in the slowly gentrifying hood, tucked in beside old peeler bars and run down taverns. Spread out around him is a mess of actor writer types, permastudents, with scripts deliberately scattered, silently entreating attention. Laptops and smartphones far outnumber the mugs and pastries. He adjusts his utility belt, places his cappuccino on the rough hewn plank, pulling his gun to the left so it clears the backrest. A sudden squawk erupts from his radio. Heads swivel towards him, curious, war...