lost

Somewhere along the road, we took a wrong turn. It was late and we were both tired--she was trying to sleep in the back--and the rain was pouring down and I couldn't see anything. Then everything looked wrong and the exit we were supposed to take just wasn't turning up, so I pulled off the road and parked. The rain started picking up, and, in the way that people sleeping in cars can do so very well, she woke up. "What's going on? Where are we?"

"I don't know."

"Well, fuck."

We were silent for a moment. I turned off the windshield wipers, so the only sound was the rain beating down--it was so heavy and seemed to just be getting worse, and now the lights were off I couldn't see anything. She crawled into the front seat and sat next to me. "Did we miss an exit or something?"

"I don't know." I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the seat back. "It's never going to stop raining."

The rain continued for a while. Our breath started to fog the windows. She shifted uneasily.

"What are we going to do?" I said. I felt like I had to talk over the rain, or she wouldn't hear me.

She shrugged. "Get some sleep. We won't be any more lost in the morning."

I nodded. It was an uneasy time to sleep, but we didn't really have a choice in the matter. By morning the rain had eased off to a steady drizzle, the windows were just as foggy, but there was a murky grey horizon where previously there was only the endless night.