Friends From the Road

           The building looked straight from a factory production, just like the blue prints for every other Illinois rest stop I had ever stepped in. Mid afternoon had sent the dozing truckers scattering back on the rad and their end of the parking lot was left bare. Had the weather been better cooperative I could imagine children rampaging through the wood chip coated playground, the parents watching near by, every bit as relieved as the kids to be stretching their legs.

          I stepped out and let the car's music fall silent as the building rushed in with sounds of its own. As I walked to its door a plaque near by spoke of unforgotten POW's and the facade bounced back the echos of high way traffic. Opening the door was a small challenge with the wind playing at my hair then rushing to seal the entrance. One tug later and I was stepping over the speckled flooring, past the information booths, to the restroom.

          The sink was my main goal, I had still been debating coffee when I started the tap. The building sent the water gushing and I cleansed my hands before beginning on my face. Voices of elderly women chirped in the stalls and after a moment one emerged. Like a true Midwesterner she greeted me with a kind smile and a polite ask of how my journey was. Over the rest stop's hum of pipes nestled in the floor beneath us I told her it was going well but I wasn't yet half way through. Her companion followed suit and soon both were washing their hands next to me peeking in mirrors smudged with small finger prints.

          The taller of the two gave a tiny gasp and pointed at the surface piercing I'd had tucked under my skin a few months earlier. A touch more genuine, my smile grew. I explained how the bar holding the silver balls was beneath my skin, it was a small plastic rod that, though invisible, could be felt even by the most gentle fingertips. The two women began weaving a story of a nephew with his own set of body modifications as they dried their hands and I ran water from my hands to the nape of my neck. The three of us stood, the elderly discussing piercings with the teenager, each on their own journey.

          After a time we shook newly fresh hands and went our ways. They tottered off to the other exit and I battled the wind to step outside, forgetting the coffee I'd decided to buy. The door shut with a surprising silence and shaded my walk back to my little car. On a curb a few parking spaces away a woman with black hair lit a cigarette and stared into her phone as she took the first drag. I sent her a smile she didn't see. When the music began as I started the car I hit the button for silence and turned back to the highway.