The Hitchhiker by Tom

The soft growl of my cars grunty little engine burbled through the wide open valley lined with dark rolling hills. My new car was a small scarlet Mini Cooper, half the size of everything else on the road, it nipped and clawed at their heels eager to overtake. It cornered sublimely making up for what it lacked in power with lightness and perfect balance. I often thought it was like puppy, small and energetic but as tough as a truck. Tall firs on either side of the road reached down towards me with finger like branches, eager to scratch the roof of my car. As I came out of the tunnel of firs I noticed that the sun had gone, it had been replaced by dark swirling clouds, threatening rain. The dark green hills in the distance, shrouded in mist, were drawing closer, I could see the thin bending road dotted with cars winding its way up and around the great hills like a boa constrictor suffocating its prey.

I was just about to start my steep bendy ascent when I saw a shadow at the side of the road, obviously a hitch hiker. The figure was dressed in fluttering rags, ribs jutting out through it skin. It huddled against a bush attempting to shelter from the cold spray kicked up from cars wheels as they splashed through the murky puddles at the side of the road. As I came closer it became clear that the figure was a man, shivering in the light mist circling his skinny ankles, his icy breath rising in steam. He had long unkempt hair, falling in dirty curtains around his sunken, skull like face.

I did not usually stop for hitchhikers not least because the vehicle was ill suited to too many occupants but also because but generally, by the way they look, don’t inspire belief that they are entirely trustworthy. But this poor man looked so lonely and miserable that I could not bear to think of him waiting out here all night for a lift that might never come.

I slowed gently in front of the hitchhiker and beckoned him forward. Gratefully the man got up and stumbled forward towards me slipping on the wet grass. As the man opened the door I got a sharp bite of the of cold on my face. Wondering how the man had survived out in the open in such harsh conditions I turn the heater up full blast in an attempt to save the man from hypothermia. The man slumped heavily down into the leather chair bringing with him a smell of dirt and of someone who has not washed for several days.

“Thank you,” he muttered his eyelids fluttering. The man was obviously on his last legs. Before the man could fall into sleep I inquired “Whereabouts are you going?”

The man raised his head an inch to look me and as he did so I notice that his deep brown eyes were empty of any sparkle or joy, instead filled with sorrow and exhaustion. It’s was as though they had had all the hope and humour that a normal people posses has been eradicated. Eventually, as though with great effort he managed to mumble,

“Anywhere” and with that slumped down low into the seat, laid his head on the head rest and fell instantly asleep.