It’s hot. But the light is still pale, as we glide along the sticky tarmac that continues forever. When I say forever, I mean: this is taking a really long time. I’d like to romanticise myself enough to say I don’t get bored of the open road, and - I don’t. But I am beginning to wonder where the turn is. Sam says keep going and so we do, but Ben’s sat-nav says something different.
I don’t really mind.
Blue, yellow, red, pink, blue. The fisherman’s stone was orange. This morning I could see no one, and that was a relief. This morning I sharply inhaled the fresh sea air that had mingled overnight with the stagnant heat of the previous day. The noise, the sweat of hundreds of brown bodies dispersed (eroded?) and replaced with salt. Salt and - what is that? Jasmine? Oranges?
It doesn’t really matter.
I’m in the car now, and the engine strains against the incline of the dusty hill it must defeat.
Defeated.
The car swims along the coastal highway. The sun, rising shyly from its watery bed paints the long grass in a golden haze. The sky is a gradient of blues - deep, like you could accidentally fall inside the light, and find yourself quite content there for eternity - and purple, closer to the mountains. The mountains are the giants who watch us sail by in our shimmering red metal ship. One of those anonymous cars from hire shops. On the adjacent horizon, the light seems to be rising from the sea like water vapour, in unison with the sun. I feel peaceful. As the day materialises, the surrounding fields and shrubbery shape shift, hazy at first with the blue touch of dawn and more yellow still, until their geometry hardens against the blackness of their shadows. If I squint my eyes, I see brutal shapes in the softest of subjects - trees, grapes, sparrows. We’re moving too fast for me to focus on them individually, but I’d like to see what becomes of them frozen in the yellow clasp of morning sun.
It’s hot. Ben says to turn right - no, left! There’s no left turn, so right we go, and follow the tarmac through a cluster of pine trees. At least it’s cooler now. Not for long.