The wind starts to pick up, carrying the scent of sage and something else that I have become familiar with, decay, sweet and sickly. I breathe it in. While others would gag, I'd learned to appreciate it. It was the smell of transformation, of one thing becoming another. The fox wasn't a fox anymore. It was food for flies, for maggots, for the earth itself. It was more useful dead than it had ever been alive.
Sometimes I wondered if the same would be true for me.
I left home the day after I graduated high school. Packed up my vintage van, this beautiful old VW I'd bought with money I'd saved from selling my art online, and just drove. No plan, no destination. Just away. Away from the parents who'd never really seen me, from the town that had never felt like home, leaving all those people with their fake smiles and their empty conversations.
I've been on the road for four years now, and I've never felt more alive. Ironic, considering I spend most of my time with the dead.
The van is my sanctuary. I've decorated it myself with fairy lights strung across the ceiling, old records stacked in milk crates, a cassette player I'd found at a thrift store in Nevada. I have a never ending supply of cherry lollipops that havebecome an addiction when I draw, love those fuckers. The bed is covered in blankets I've collected from different states, each one a memory of a place I'd been, a thing I'd seen. I would call it vintage hobo chic. It isn’t much, but it’s mine. And it represents everything about me. No pretense or theatrical performance. Just me and my art and the open road.
I finish the basic outline of the fox and start adding texture, the fine details that will make it feel real. The trick is making death feel as real on paper as it did in life. People want to sanitize it, make it peaceful and clean or act like it doesn’t exist. But death isn't peaceful. It can be violent and messy and raw. It is the most honest thing in the world and something we will all experience one day.
The sun dips lower, and the shadows grow longer. I should probably get going soon and find a place to park for the night, maybe a rest stop or a quiet side road where no one will bother me. But I’m not done yet. The drawing isn't finished, and I never leave a piece unfinished. That’s the rule. Once I start documenting something, I see it through to the end.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. Probably another message from a buyer, asking about new work, but I ignore it. They can wait. The fox can't.
I add more shadow to the eye sockets, darkening them until they look like voids. Empty. That's what death is, an emptying out. All the things that made youyoujust…gone. And what’s left is just meat and bone, returning to the soil. Honest. Simple. True.
A car passes by, slowing down slightly, but I don't look up. People frequently slow down when they see me, because to them it’s weird, a girl alone on the side of the road, crouched over something dead. They probably think I need help, or maybe they think I’m crazy. Either way, they never stop. They justslow down, look, then speed up again, eager to get away from whatever weirdness they'd witnessed.
Fine by me. I don't need their help. Don't want it.
The cassette clicks over to the next song.Stripped. I smile. The universe has a sense of humor sometimes. Stripped down to nothing, nothing to protect you from the harsh reality. That's what I want. That's what I'd always wanted. No masks, no lies, no pretending to be something I’m not.
Just truth.
I’m adding the final details to the individual hairs of the fox's coat, the texture of the road beneath it, when I feel something that pushes my soul off balance. That prickle on the back of my neck, the one that tells me I’m being watched. Not by a passing car, no, this is different, as it feels like I’m being watched closely. Someone has stopped.
I don't look up right away, instead, I keep drawing, my pencil moving steadily across the paper. My senses sharpen, hyperaware of everything around me. The sound of boots on gravel. The faint smell of cigarette smoke. The presence of someone standing just behind me, close enough that I can feel their shadow falling across my work.
Others would be scared by a stranger approaching, but fear requires caring about what happens to you, and I'd stopped caring about that a long time ago. If someone wants to hurt me, let them try. At least it would be interesting.
I finish the stroke I’ve been working on, then slowly look up.
He is tall. That is the first thing I notice. Tall and broad, with messy black hair that falls across his forehead like he's just rolled out of bed. Brown eyes, dark and intense, fixed on my sketchpad with an expression I can't quite read. His forearms are covered in tattoos that look like intricate designs that disappear under the sleeves of his black t-shirt. Everything about him is moody. Black jeans, black boots, black leather jacket slung over oneshoulder despite the heat, even though I’m crouched here wearing a hoodie, but it’s to protect me from the dust.
He looks like death dressed up and walking around. He’s also fucking hot, and he is staring at my drawing like it is the most fascinating thing he's ever seen.
"That's good," he says, his voice low and rough, like gravel under tires. "Really good."
I don’t respond as I watch him, waiting to see what he'll do next. In the past when anyone saw my work, they'd make some uncomfortable comment about how morbid it was, how it was disturbing. They'd laugh nervously and change the subject. But this guy... he wasn't laughing. He wasn't uncomfortable. He was actuallyinterested.
He crouches down beside me, close enough that I can smell him, cigarettes and leather and something else that is woodsy, so delicious that I want to take a sniff of his neck. His eyes move from the drawing to the fox, then back again, comparing both. This is an interesting turn of events.
"You got the eyes right," he says, pointing to the sketch. "I’ve seen drawings where the artist fucks up the eyes by making them too alive, like they are aware. But you got it. That emptiness. That's what the end looks like."
Something shifts in my chest. I’m sparking with this guy as he sees it like me, and that’s never happened before. As I look at him I see myself, he carries a weight that I have carried all of my life. Trying to hide the dark void that we carry, for being able to see the world for what it truly is. I can sense it in him straight away, he is immune to the masks society wears and fuck is it refreshing to know there is someone else like me out there.
"Who are you?" I ask, my voice coming out rougher than I intend.
He smiles, and it isn’t a nice smile. It is sharp and dangerous and completely genuine. I think I’m crushing.
"Dom," he says. "And you?"
"Roxy."
"Nice ride," he says, nodding toward the van behind us. I look back and see his car parked a few yards behind it. It looks sporty, and unsurprisingly it’s black to match his clothes. It looks a few years old, but matches him well.
I should be really creeped out that this stranger is talking to me, and should consider grabbing my stuff and leaving, as we’ve all seen those horror movies. But I’m the dumb girl and don’t. Instead, I feel something I haven't felt in years. Curiosity in another person and the possibility that I've found someone who understands me. Someone who sees the world the way I do.
