Back and forth, back and forth. Windshield wipers flashed across the woodland landscape in a hypnotic dance. Their song of swoosh-ka, swoosh-ka was a regular drumbeat against the erratic ping-ping-ti-ping-ti-ti-ti-ping of the bullets of rain pelting the roof. Jason tried to focus on the pockmarked mud drive but the rhythmic wipers teased his vision. He forced his eyes to ignore the slender black dancers and see the road before him. Trees jittered and shook in the misty twilight, bone-like branches crashing, leaves scattering.
A twig fell onto the windshield, and its long fingers clung to one of the wipers until it was flung away and the dance continued. Swoosh-ka, swoosh-ka; back and forth, back and forth. Jason sighed and flipped his attention back to the driveway.
He shivered; he had turned the air-conditioner unreasonably high to try and manage the choking humidity. But now the little old car was chilled. He reached towards the dashboard and lowered the intensity. How graceful were the wipers; how beautiful the splashes of water on the glass… he found himself swaying in time with their dance. You have been in the car too long, he told himself, focus on the road and you’ll get there soon enough.
The lane made a sudden turn to the right, revealing before Jason an old two-storey motel building. The sagging roof formed a little stream that sprang over the useless gutter and tumbled down the faded sign of Peppermint Lodge. Water rinsed browned crevices between off-white boards, smearing filth down the front of the building. He parked in between the only two cars in the gravel parking lot, and shut off the engine. Swoosh-ka, ka-kaaa…
He grabbed his duffle bag and backpack from the passenger seat, and opened the door, careful not to hit the small grey Subaru next to him. The warm, heavy air almost made him cough after the artificial fineness of the car. Huge droplets pounded his head, quickly flattening his long, dark hair and flooding over his angular face.
He put an arm over his bowed head and started splashing heavily through the muddy lot towards the welcome building: a sorry-looking blue shack with one yellowing door and no windows. The metal doorknob was warm and left a coating of rain on Jason’s hand after he gave it a jerk. The door opened with a shriek of hinges and a chorus of laughing bells. Along with it came a cool draft of air, and a whiff of heavy, flowery perfume that he couldn’t quite place. He stepped inside, the bright yellow wallpaper and homey orange light almost blinding him.
“I’ll be right there!” From behind a wooden door on the opposite wall, the shrill call pierced the rain-splattered silence.
“Alright,” Jason murmured with a yawn. He wasn’t sure if the voice could hear him, but didn’t care enough to try again louder.
Just a few feet in front of him was a high desk, coated in peeling wood-grain plastic, with an open guestbook and photo album. He was just leaning over the guestbook to take a look when a huge ball of fur appeared on top of it and a large wooly head began rubbing on his chest. A little sandpaper tongue lashed his cheek. Jason gasped and received a mouthful of long, smooth hairs. He had never liked cats, and this monster was no exception.
“Now, now, Doily!” a voice cooed.
An ovate woman garbed in bubblegum pink bustled up to Jason and took the creature into her short, pudgy arms. She had a merry, round face with surprisingly large eyes and a dusting of fine ashen curls.
“Sorry ‘bout him,” she said with a wink and a click of her tongue, “he’s a bit eccentric… aren’t you, ol’ boy?” She buried her nose into the long, matted fur.
Jason cleared his throat, his eyelids drooping slightly before he caught himself.
She dumped the cat onto the floor and gave a few futile swipes at her pink t-shirt, but the layer of grey fur was too thick to brush away.
“Anyway,” the woman said, reaching out a plump hand, “I’m Ingrid, me and my husband Mark run the place.”
“I’m Jason,” he said. Ingrid’s fleshy hand was clammy against his long, rough fingers. “I’ll probably be staying for three or four days.”
“Take any room you want!” Then she added with a cheery wink, “But all the even numbers on the top row have porches in the back.”
“Do I need a key?” Jason asked.
“Nah,” she chuckled, “they’re all unlocked; you can lock yourself in for the night, if you like, but keys are too much hassle to keep track of.”
He looked down at the guestbook. Large, round letters read Sierra Tess Marigold. The only tenant all summer had apparently signed in earlier that day. Ingrid’s face appeared next to Jason’s, a lump of pudding staring at the guestbook. Her breath smelt of coffee.
“That one,” she said in a confidential whisper, pointing a yellow-painted fingernail at the signature, “she’s a bit odd. A nice girl, but she couldn’t stop talking about how much she loved the rain… she came in a few hours ago when there was thunder and lightning.” She chuckled, “She was out there dancing for about fifteen minutes. I myself can’t understand how she would like the stuff!”
With a tall, slanting scribble, he signed: Jason Hadley. “To each their own,” he murmured.
“Yeah,” Ingrid shrugged, “that’s what they say, isn’t it?”
“See you later,” Jason said, collecting his bags.
“Alrighty,” she said.
He threw the door open to see that the sun had set completely.
The rain had lightened to a misting that was barely noticeable, save the sticky feeling and the fresh, spicy smell. He climbed the open-rising wooden stairs up to the second level, noting grimly the rotting groan each step made. Remembering what Ingrid had said about the even numbered apartments, he randomly chose number four.
The door whined in quiet protest, then snapped gratefully shut.
The swelteringly hot room smelt of musty perfume. Jason’s blindly groping fingers soon fell on a small, plastic light switch. Flipping this, he saw before him a modest room: a cheap kitchen with a folding table and plastic desk chairs to his right, a bathroom to his left, a sliding glass porch door on the opposite wall, and a flowery queen-sized bed in the center. He strode to this and dumped his bags on the lacy bedspread.
The heat was unbearable, and Jason was sure he wouldn’t be able to sleep in it, despite his exhaustion. Seeing the lack of windows, he decided to open the porch door a few inches to cool the room down. He tugged slightly on the slender wooden handle, then froze, heart skittering to a stop, as the door slid easily open to reveal somebody on the porch.
A young woman was standing, rather unsteadily, atop the flimsy wooden railing. She wore loose cut-off shorts and a thin sweater over an athletic body. Her short, wet hair licked her neck in the soggy wind. Pots and pans, buckets, bowls – even teacups – were spread out around her on the porch, full of water.
For a split second, he thought that she hadn’t noticed him, that he could just slide the door closed again and go to another apartment. But she had heard the low whistle of the sliding door and her head was turning.
All that Jason could see of her face in the dark was a pointed nose and prominent cheekbones, but her unmistakable expression of peaceful curiosity put him at ease.
“Sorry,” he said quietly, preparing to step back into the room, “the lights were off and I didn’t realize you were here…”
“That’s alright!” She had a soft, gentle voice and her words were sincere. “Isn’t it gorgeous weather?”
The mist was heavy and dark over a marsh that stank of mud. Jason lived in the desert and didn’t like the rain.
“I guess so,” he muttered, eager to leave this crazy woman and collapse into a soft bed.
“Ooh,” she took a luxurious breath, “this porch is a perfect lookout; you can feel the wind in your hair, and smell the freshness of the forest… Don’t you think? Don’t you want to jump off, and glide suspended on the wind?” she asked rhetorically. One sandaled foot began to swing dangerously over the edge.
“I wanna go to sleep, actually,” he muttered distractedly – this woman wasn’t actually about to jump… was she?
Sighing, she turned back around to face him. He relaxed as she hopped onto the porch and walked over to him, picking her way through the dishes. Now that she was in the light leaking out from the apartment, he saw that her wavy blonde hair was tinged with red, and her boney face freckled. She must have been in her early twenties – about the same age as him.
“My name’s Sierra, you?” Her dark-lashed teal eyes, level with his, twinkled with an almost crazed energy.
“I’m Jason…”
“It’s so nice to meet you, Jason,” she said with an earnest grin, reaching out a muscled arm and patting him amiably on the shoulder.
“Uh… you too,” he muttered, twitching away from her warm, heavy touch, “but I really better be going now.”
“See you later!” She called after him as he took up his things and left.
----
Questions:
1. Is this post a good length, or would you rather I post longer/shorter segments at a time?
2. Is the dialogue realistic?
3. Is there too much/too little description? Am I describing the right things?
I'm still working on the ending (thus the unsureness as to how many parts there will be) but I thought I'd post this much to see what you guys thing... thoughts?
