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a short story i wrote at 4am during the night after my birthday. spent a couple of days idly editing it, but not too much. i like how scrappy it is. thought i'd share it here instead of letting it collect dust in my phone :-)

it was a woman i met at a gas station, this trucker who smelled of mothballs and lemons and grease. she looked like she had been missing a shower for a couple months, but i was desperate for a ride after my previous left me stranded. she asked me how old i was: i told her i had just turned twenty-two. she agreed to let me hitch a ride with her to make it back to the city.

in the city is a municipal museum that has a painting that, for several years, i had been crossing the country to see. i sometimes think about bringing it home with me, but standing under all the cameras and lights and guards and the statue of some nameless saint staring into my back i never feel that i'm sharp or brave enough to take it off the wall. anyway this trucker, she listened to me yammer on about my journey to see this painting for almost an hour—just driving, her eyes still on the road, no music or nothing just focused and listening—before she stopped me to say: "so what's the painting actually? like, what's so great about it?"

it never occurred to me that someone would have any interest in hearing what i had to say, and so i hadn't thought to mention a thing that was so obvious to me. the painting is great, i told her, because it is a stunning portrait of my late mother.

"your mother?" she said, finally looking at me. and then she laughed, and nodded, and i knew she thought me strange but she was kind to think my statement was an odd joke. "and who was your mother, the secretary?"

of course, my mother was no city secretary or high-profile figure or known to anybody other than her few friends and family. but she let herself be painted by this artist, whose work began in the small frog town where i was born, before it was recognized in this city where the artist became famous for her surreal townscapes.

this portrait, i told the trucker, (and i was excited because she had been listening to my descriptions with such attention) was her only piece depicting a human being, any living being at all, and that being was my very mother.

by this point we had been talking for hours, and the day was getting late. something i noticed about the trucker was that she never divulged much information about herself. she was uncomfortable when i asked, and i didn't like to make her uncomfortable. so i could only learn about her through the way she responded to my story and the way she kept her truck. the former: curious and intrigued. the latter: minimal, sticky, and smelling of a sweet citrus bug repellent.

as for our journey, we had made good progress, but we would have to cross one last bend in the highway before we were in the city. the trucker showed me how i could sleep on top of the vacuum packed mattresses in the truck, and offered me one of her pillows and her only blanket. i thought about refusing the blanket but it was so cold in the back of her truck, being the middle of winter, and the heater only circulated hot air at the helm.

i slept terribly, and lightly, and in the middle of the night i woke up to the sound of the truck door creaking open. with no desire to move out from under the blankets i lay still, freezing, listening to the asphalt thrum. it was the sound of footsteps, rapid, going from loud to quiet to silent to quiet to loud again, repeating for hours. i could only assume the trucker was running up and down the stretch of the highway. first i was irritated, and i felt the sound like it was beating on my head, but at some point the beating began to feel like a warm rocking, and i think i fell asleep before it stopped.

in the morning i brought this up with her. she looked briefly embarrassed before admitting she liked to get some exercise in, to stretch her legs after a day of work, and that she didn't like to be seen doing it. i thought it was good, that she was taking care of her health, and also that it was unfortunate that it came at the cost of myself sleeping out in the cold. i didn't say this part out loud.

i thought she would want to part ways in the city. i debated asking her to come with me to see this painting—after all, i had never met someone so interested in hearing about it—but i chalked that up to the trucker being in sore need of some entertainment and some company and i figured i wouldn't mess with a good thing. we would go our separate ways, and i would leave her where she appeared most comfortable—in the solitudinous grime of her rattlesnake machine. so when she dropped me off, i offered nothing but farewell, and she drove away wordlessly. i watched her face for as long as i could, framed by the window of her truck, and thought i made the right choice.

the municipal museum is a tall white marble-and-glass building. the slopes of its pillars make it look like it wasn't constructed but pulled out of the ground, and at that hour the beams of sunlight cutting through its walls would give it some reverence. it's always maintained pristine, like the polished pearl of a clam city. when the painter started living here she would have been able to watch its construction from start to finish. i think some of her pieces even depict something like the museum in an earlier state. i don't know exactly—i only come up to see the one painting, and what i know of the others i mostly know from overhearing the museumgoers talk.

i knew my way up the stairs and through the halls to get to the portrait. when i turned the corner and saw it, it was exactly the way i'd anticipated it: framed in pewter, my mother's hard, warm face. her gaze was heavy on me.

good to see your face again, i thought. good that i can still remember.

i always came to this place and replaced a bit of a real memory of my mother with memories of this place and this painting. at this point i can barely remember what kind of person she was. but when i look long enough i think i can stir up some ancient memory, or the memory of a memory, a feeling about her that's diluted but can't be lost.

sometimes i think she looks out of place. in the painting, she's detailed in some parts of her face, lacking definition in others, like the artist herself had forgotten what was meant to fill the space. i always wondered if this piece was exhibited for any merit other than the fact it was created by the city's most beloved painter. or if someone else, anyone other than me, could see it ringing with a faint song.

i stayed as late as i could with the painting, like i always did, before someone touched me on the shoulder. i assumed it was a security guard who had come to tell me the museum was closing—no, it was the trucker.

she looked, not at me, but at the painting. after i got over my surprise i asked her what she thought. she didn't say anything, but she didn't look away from it. her looking got so long, actually, that i began to feel nervous that the museum would be closing soon.

the room grew colder as the remaining sunlight drained out. at one point i thought, it's definitely time for the museum to be closing. had they forgotten about us? just as i opened my mouth to say something, the trucker turned to me and said, "she looks like you."