The Air She Breathes

This is going to be a long one. Just a warning.

So Brother Harrell, he's a creative writing teacher here at BYU-I, suggested some things to do to help get ideas for stories when writing on a deadline or when things seem to have just come to a hault. One of these suggestions was to write a story to a set of pictures. Well I took a whole bunch of pictures in San Diego with a story in mind. I got all the pictures I could ever want and still I could not write it. Everytime I sat down to do it another story inspired by one of the pictures popped into my head. So I wrote it.

This is one of the millions of pictures taken at Carlsbad Beach. I know it's blurry, but that's Shane.


The only reason she knows she's still alive is because of the steady rise and fall of her chest beneath her hand. It's too quiet, too still, too calm. She thinks about where she might be; how far a scream might carry, if there's even anyone to hear it. She closes her eyes and it looks the same as if they were open. She tries to remember what happened.

“Dang it!” She hits the steering wheel with the palm of her hand, too angry to even wince at the stinging red welt it leaves behind. Smoke billows out from underneath the hood of the car and she feels like she is driving through fog. Kayla decides it's probably time to pull the car over. Once in the emergency pull off lane she turns the car off and takes a moment to lay her forehead on the steering wheel. “This is not happening.” Letting go of a deep sigh she opens the car door and steps out. She doesn't bother looking for any cars that might be barreling down the highway, she already knows there aren't any. Struggling to open the hood of the car, she's finally able to prop it up. If it was possible even more smoke puffed up once released from the constraints of the hood. She takes a step back, waving her hand in front of her face and coughing. Reaching into her pocket she pulls out her cell phone hoping there is the tiniest bit of service in this waste land. She dials a number from memory and waits for her brother to answer.

“Hello, Kayla.” He says and his slow, southern drawl makes it sound like yellow. It makes her long for her home in Alabama instead of being stuck somewhere between Arizona and California.

“Hey, so there's smoke.”

“Smoke.” He repeats and she can almost see his bright smile and one raised, dark brown eyebrow.

“As in my car is smoking and no longer running.” she expounds.

“Where are you?” Kayla looks around at the vast expanse of desert and sighs.

“Earth.” Her brother lets out a bark of laughter.

“Okay, well you're going to have to wait for the engine to cool down before you can do anything. So just chill out in your car for a little bit. No opening the hood, no pouring water anywhere yet. Just sit tight.”

“No opening the hood?” Kayla questions, biting her lip.

“You already did.”

“Well there was smoke and any logical person would figure it shouldn't be all trapped inside where it's obviously freaking hot so I opened the hood Adam.”

“Okay, calm down. You opened the hood. Did you burn yourself?'

“No.”

“Good. Now get back in the car and don't touch anything.” There's a brief pause. “I love you.”

“Yeah, yeah. I love you too.” Kayla goes back to the driver's side of the car and slides back in. She closes the door and proceeds to roll down all of the windows. “It's so hot Adam. How long am I going to have to wait?” She leans back into the seat and closes her eyes. She can already feel the sweltering heat suffocating her. She wonders how anyone can breathe in this heat. It's not even humid, it's just hot.

“Well if you had kept an eye on the temperature gauge like I told you to then I'm sure you wouldn't be in this mess.”

“I was keeping an eye on it. I watched it go all the way up to the red zone.” Kayla tells him truthfully.

“What are you, four? Red means bad. Red means turn off the air conditioning and roll down the windows. Red means pull over. Red means call your brother and ask what to do.” Adam scolds.

“Hey, don't you give me a lecture. It's not my fault I'm the one having to drive all the way to California. You're the one that's supposed to be doing this. I was just doing my kid brother a favor so don't go all 'holier than thou' on me Adam. I'm stuck in the middle of nowhere all by myself and the last thing I need is for my little brother to lecture me.”

“Kayla,” Adam says and sighs, “Kayla calm down. I'm sorry. Here I'm going to give you something to do to try and help with cooling down the engine. Just go get one of the gallon jugs out of the trunk and go to the hood of the car.” Without saying a word to Adam, Kayla does what he asked her to do. When she's standing at the hood of the car, gallon jug of water in hand, she tells him.

“Okay now what?” she asks trying to keep as much sarcasm from her voice as possible.

“You're going to check the coolant reservoir tank. It looks like a plastic milk jug with a hose going to the radiator.” Kayla looks under the hood for something resembling what Adam is talking about. When she finds it she smiles. Not as hard as she thought it was going to be.

“Found it.” she says happily.

“Good. Now carefully unscrew the cap and then pour in the water until it's full. Be careful.” Kayla unscrews the cap and sets it down on the edge of the car. Balancing the jug of water between her leg and the car she unscrews the cap and places it next to the coolant reservoir tank cap. A little hesitantly at first she begins to pour the water into the tank. The first splash of water in the tank lets her know that it was empty.

“Adam,” she says, “it's not good if it was empty, huh?”

“No, not really.” he says laughing. “It'll be okay. We'll just take care of this and you'll be back on the road in no time.” He assures her.

“Okay good.” She fills the tank and then sets the jug down on the dirt and gravel that makes up the emergency pull off lane. “Alright I did that, now what?”

“Go and try turning on the car. Maybe that will have fixed it.” Adam says, but he doesn't sound all that convinced. Kayla gets back into the car and turns the key in the ignition.

“Nothing.” she tells him.

“Then you're just going to have to wait for the engine to cool down some more. Wait about thirty minutes and then see if the engine is still hot. Don't touch it or anything. Just grab a rag and get it wet. Use that to see if the engine is hot. Call me when you've done that. Okay?”

“You're hanging up?” Kayla asks and she's pretty proud of herself for keeping the panic she's feeling out of her voice.

“I'm at work. I can't stay on the phone with you for an hour. You'll be fine. Like you said no one else is out there so it's not like anything is going to happen.”

“Funny Adam.”

“Yeah, I try to be. Anyway I've gotta go.”

“Alright. Love you.” Kayla tells him a little begrudgingly.

“Love you too.” Adam says before hanging up. Kayla sighs and puts the cell phone in the cup holder next to her. Laying her head back against the head rest she closes her eyes. She thinks she'll take a little bit of a nap and the engine will have cooled off by the time she wakes up.

She doesn't know how long she's been asleep. At first she figured the sound of a motor was part of a dream, but when she opens her eyes, squinting against the brightness of the desert sun, she sees a motorcycle. When the motorcycle flies on past she grumbles under her breath about missing southern hospitality. She figures now would be as good a time as any to see if the engine has cooled off. She's getting out of the car when she hears the motorcycle again. They turned around, she thinks happily. Kayla walks back to the trunk to grab a rag and the other jug of water. She stops and waits as the man climbs off his bike and takes off his helmet.

“Car trouble?” he asks, smiling.

“My engine just overheated. Nothing too serious.” She answers and returns the smile.

“Well here let me help you.” He offers putting his helmet down on the seat of his bike. He walks over and takes the water jug and rag from her before heading toward the front of the car. Kayla follows. “What are you doing all the way out here?” he asks, having taken note of her Alabama plates.

“I'm doing a favor for my little brother. He used to live in San Diego.” She thinks about giving him a call to let him know someone stopped to help her. She reaches into her pocket only to remember she left the phone in the car. She decides not to worry about it. She'll call him when she's back on the road.

“How long have you had the engine off?” he asks.

“Um,” she says thinking about it, “probably a little over a half an hour now. I filled the reservoir tank, but the car still wouldn't start so I've just been waiting for the engine to cool down.” He looks impressed with her knowledge and she smiles. He goes to work fiddling with things and then pouring water in. She stands just off to the side watching. “I'm Kayla by the way.” she informs him.

“Thomas.” he replies looking at her over his shoulder.

“Do you live around here?” she asks looking around as if expecting to suddenly see some form of life. “Wherever here is.” she adds. He laughs and nods his head.

“You're just about twenty miles from Peach Springs. It's true though. Not too many people live around here.”

“Well thank you for coming back to help me. I really appreciate it.”

“It's no problem.” he says finishing up. “There, I think you should be fine now. Your brother's awfully lucky to have you around.”

“I guess. He's not half bad himself.” she picks up the two discarded jugs while he's screwing all the caps back on everything.

“You look hot,” he tells her and her eyes widen for a brief moment before he finishes his sentence, “I've got some water if you want some.”

“Oh, yeah sure. That'd be great.” She rolls her eyes at herself and bites back a laugh when she thinks about recounting all of this to her brother when she's back on the road. She follows him back around the car and tosses the jugs in the near empty trunk before shutting it. He already has a water bottle in hand, cap off, when she turns around. She accepts the drink and takes a sip. “Thanks.”

“No problem.” she leans against the trunk of the car and the hot metal almost burns right through the seat of her jeans, but she doesn't move. There's a bit of an awkward silence and Kayla takes a few more sips of water.

“Where are you headed?” she finally asks to break the silence.

“Just out for a drive.” Kayla nods and it feels strange, her head is heavy. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. She figures it's just the heat getting to her or she's just more tired than she originally thought. She has been driving for quite some time.

“Are you feeling alright?” she hears him ask. His voice sounds far away. She opens her eyes and it's a more difficult task than it should be. Kayla knows something is wrong.

“I'm fine.” The sentence makes sense in her head, but she doesn't think it quite made it past her lips. She drops the water bottle and leans against the car for more support. “Thanks for your help. I think I'll just lay down in my car.” Her words are slurring together and it takes all her concentration to walk toward the driver's side door.

“Would you like some help?” She's scared now and wishing she had never left her phone in the car. She can't form words so she tries shaking her head. It makes the dizziness worse. She reaches for the handle of the car door and loses her balance in the process of opening it. From the ground she can see her phone laying in the car. She struggles to scoot back toward the door in order to use it for support. Hearing the crunch of dirt and gravel she turns to see him walking toward her, his white shirt being blown in the hot desert breeze. Her vision blurs and she loses the battle of keeping her heavy eyes open.

Kayla opens her eyes and gasps, the memory flooding back in bits and pieces. She moves her hand from off her stomach and places it beside her where she feels some sort of wood wall. She puts it a few inches above her face and feels the same wood wall. Heart racing, she tries not to panic. Hearing movement outside of the box she's in she closes her eyes and tries to still her breathing. She feels the entire box move to one side and then light and fresh air pour in. She tries not to take big gulping breaths and she keeps her eyes shut. She feels hands on her side and she's being shoved further into the box. There's a thud beside her and she feels the warmth of another body.