A Look at the Afternoon Sun (2019)
I thought nine hours would be an easy drive to do alone. I was wrong.
BY DANIELLA SILVESTRI
IMAGE BY ANNA BONDARENKO
“You're in the homestretch, Ethan, just forty-five more minutes,” I told myself, trying to stay awake. It’s a nine-hour drive from where I live in Portland, Maine to my parents’ house in Niagara Falls, Canada. I thought nine hours would be an easy drive to do alone. I was wrong.
Let me start at the beginning. I left my apartment this morning at eight o’clock; the sun was out, and I was ready to hit the road. I checked the weather (continuously sunny), and there were no detours due to construction—so, as far as I knew, this would be an easy drive. A long drive, mind you, but easy nonetheless.
To aid in my journey, I loaded up on entertainment for the ride: an audiobook about a man who journeyed across Canada's Arctic by himself, racing against the shift in seasons; a few podcasts (mostly about true crime and unsolved mysteries); and my all-time favourite: ghost stories. In retrospect, I'm not sure why I thought those podcast choices would be great for someone traveling by themselves, but I digress.
I got through a third of the audiobook when an obnoxious buzzing sound came from my phone. My battery was low. I forgot to plug it in the charger last night; of course, of all nights to forget, it's the one before the nine-hour drive. Not to worry, I had packed a spare charger in a small, black carry-on bag which keeps my small cords, portable chargers, and car adapters in one place. My buddies tease me for it, but “man purse” or not, it's handy.
I glanced over to the passenger seat and noticed it wasn't tucked in its usual spot; the slot between the seat and middle console was empty. I figured I must have moved it while cleaning my car, and it was probably in the back seat. I was driving on the interstate, so there were no stoplights and I still had about half a tank of gas left.
Not wanting to pull over, I waited until cars were cleared from around me on the two-lane highway, then quickly scanned the backseat to see if it was in view or within reach. Negative. The half tank of gas meant that I was about two hours away from having to make a fuelling stop. I had just grabbed food about an hour ago, so aside from needing a charger, there was no real reason to stop. Besides, at this point, I was already five hours into my drive into the middle of nowhere, at the edge of New York state—there was nothing in sight off the highway. I could go about two more hours on the tank that I had left, which was enough to bring me to a bigger town called Utica.
I wouldn’t have been so eager to find my charger had the radio in the car been working. For a 2002 Toyota Corolla, I had to say it was doing pretty well to have only a busted radio as its biggest problem. Anyway, I was forced to turn my phone off. It was probably for the best that I save what battery I had left, in case of an emergency. That, however, left me to sit in the silence of my own thoughts for the next while until I reached Utica.
I couldn’t wait to get my phone back up and running; it seemed like a waste to have nothing to listen to. The lack of background noise was getting to me. At least it was only for a little while…
Finally, I saw the words “Welcome to Utica” fading on a sign up ahead. I got off on the first exit with a gas station. When I arrived, I filled up my tank, then proceeded to finally look for my bag. I checked under the passenger seat, in the back seats, and under my seat, but still, I came up empty. Now I was committed. I decided to unpack the trunk of my car to see if I had somehow thrown it back there. With every item I removed from the trunk, my frustration built. I could have sworn I packed it! Could I have taken it out of my car? A few days ago, I stopped by my buddy Steve's garage to use his shop-vac to clean up my car. Did I take it out and not put it back? I doubted it, but it obviously wasn’t here. Of course, I couldn't call to confirm this with Steve because my phone was dead! Wait, I turned it off…didn’t I?
“What is going on?!” I muttered to myself, frustrated. It was like the universe was playing tricks on me.
I went inside the station to ask the clerk if they sold phone chargers for cars—the type I needed was the one that fits in the cigarette lighter port. The clerk looked like she was maybe eighteen and stared at me like I had three heads.
“We have USB and USB-C type cables,” she said, clearly bewildered. “How would you even get power from a lighter?” The look on her face made me feel like I was the one who was uninformed. I left, feeling irritated and thinking that even if they did have what I needed, the clerk wouldn’t know where to find it anyway. I was wasting time. I had about four hours left in the trip and I wasn't about to drive around Utica blindly, hoping to stumble upon a Walmart to get a charger, so I moved on.
Thankfully, I wasn't dependent on my phone for a map. I drive this route six to eight times a year to visit my parents; it's basically a straight shot once you get on the I-90W. Usually, I would bring my brother to accompany me on this lengthy trip, but I mistakenly thought it would be fun to go it alone this time. I knew the route like the back of my hand, but that didn’t make the journey alone any easier. Four hours. For four hours, I was in silence. All I had was the sound of the tires bouncing on uneven asphalt, the rumble of the car when I cracked open the windows to refresh the stale air in the cabin, and the droning of passing vehicles. It was a long four hours.
I wasn’t tired. It wasn’t even dinner time yet, but I felt like I was in a trance. I became mesmerized by the beat of the tires on the road and the hum of the engine. It was as if something had come over me and was trying to lull me to sleep. Now, I was using the rumble of the open windows to keep me awake rather than to change the air. Silence was hard; sitting with my own thoughts was harder.
“C’mon, Ethan. Homestretch," I kept telling myself. “Stay awake!”
I was finally in a tiny town I recognized, Clarence, and I was seeing signs of nearing the Canadian border. I knew at this point I was about forty minutes from the border and approximately thirty-two miles from my parents’ place. I was excited, but suddenly exhausted. And hungry. I made a quick stop at a small hole-in-the-wall diner, grabbed a BLT to go, and hopped back in the car. I was almost there, but this last bit of the drive was not going to be easy on my drooping eyelids. On top of the fatigue (and I don't think the sandwich helped, either), the weather was shifting outside. The sun was beginning to set, and the last bit of daylight left was fading to grey. Visibility of the road and my immediate surroundings was lessening due to the oncoming fog.
At this point, I was on the stretch of highway that was two lanes wide, bordered on either side by guardrails, and surrounded by partial forest and uninhabited land. The area was large, almost farm-like, but between these open areas, there were mildly dense trees and bushes. It was odd. The open area was beautiful and full of life, but an eerie feeling fell upon me as I drove past the forest. My skin prickled.
I continued down the road through the fog, which was now misting and coated the road with a thin, slick sheet of moisture.
With nothing to see aside from the road immediately in front of me, I must have either zoned out or dozed off for a quick minute or two—because, in my rear-view mirror, I suddenly saw a man I didn't know sitting in the backseat. He was tall, slenderly built, with a sunken face lined with cheekbones so sharp that they threatened to break through his thin, grey skin. His eyes, cold and black, were staring at me—staring through me.
I panicked. I glanced from the mirror to my speedometer, barely noticing that I was twenty over the limit, and then slammed on the brakes. Big mistake—my car spun. From the left lane, I slid into the left guardrail and then jolted across the two lanes to crash into the right guardrail. Thankfully, no other cars were immediately near me. However, I did hit my head pretty hard on the window, so it took me a minute to process what just happened.
After recovering, I quickly turned to look in my backseat. It was empty. A vehicle that had been trailing far behind me happened to witness the entire incident; they pulled over and must have phoned the police, because it wasn’t long before I saw the blue and red lights emerging from the fog. The people in the other vehicle never came to check on me, but they waited until the police arrived. I stayed in my car, slightly shaken and thankfully unhurt, but I was so confused.
What was it that I saw? How did that happen?
Had I fallen asleep? Was I dreaming? I must have been. Or…?
When the police and ambulance arrived, I was escorted into the back of the ambulance to be examined while the cop spoke to the witnesses before taking my statement. Eventually, he strolled over to my vehicle and opened my back-driver side door and my driver door to peer his head in.
He then came up to me and, in an assertive tone, asked, "Who else was in the car with you?"
Puzzled, I explained to him that I was driving alone from Portland to visit my parents in Niagara Falls. He asked again, this time with more agitation in his voice—who was I traveling with?
Again, I assured him that I was by myself. I knew I had hit my head and was feeling a little dizzy, so I could not explain what happened that caused me to lose control. However, traveling alone in complete silence for eight and a half hours... That’s one thing I was certain I’d done. He continued to question me about the incident, but I could tell he was suspicious of me.
Just before the cop finished talking to me, the couple came over. They kept their distance—as if I was contagious with a deadly disease—and asked the cop if "they" were alright. They? Who is they?
I interrupted, "I'm fine. Thankfully, it was just me in the car."
They looked puzzled, eyebrows raised in shock, but it was the tinge of horror in their eyes that made me pause. They looked back at my car and then at the cop.
"But we saw another man. He got out of one of the passenger doors, jumped over the guardrail, and into the brush."
Daniella Silvestri is a mature student going into her fourth year in Psychology at the University of Guelph-Humber. She runs a business while in school and volunteers at a charity organization as a group facilitator for grief and bereavement. Her goal is to become a psychotherapist.
Image: Anna Bondarenko, A Look at the Afternoon Sun, oil on canvas, 2019.
An earlier version of this story was originally created as part of The University of Guelph-Humber’s AHSS 2000: Creative Writing course.
Edited for publication by Emily Sawchyn, as part of the Creative Book Publishing Program.
The HLR Spotlight is a collaboration between the Faculty of Media & Creative Arts and the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences and Innovative Learning at Humber College in Toronto, Ontario. This project is funded by the Applied Research & Innovation.