Somnambulist

We drove for miles. We drove through the yellow stones and the acrid smell of sulfur. We drove through blackened, burned wood and steaming pools. We sat in traffic in the middle of the forest.  We drove into the Tetons, to the southern gate, turned around and drove back through them again. We drove by fields and signs pointing to fields.  We drove by pristine pools. We drove until our asses were aching and our feet were sweating in their separate compartments.

We slept by a lake that night. The crystal and cerulean water murmured in the dark; the high peaks hushed.  Someone walked into our campsite in the blackness; the man was not well. He spoke of a lost son to no one and directed his rogue torch into our tent. We sat fearful and rigid, illuminated.  He approached; we held our breath shallow in our fluttering chests. He stood within our reach as we prayed, despite our doubts, that we were out of his. I contemplated the repercussions of screaming.  I considered running and shaking those sleeping so close to me out of their reveries and into the murderous reality of the night.  That night there was no moon and my path would have been a blind one.  But the horrific scene forming before me was dispelled by the sound of retreating footsteps; the crisp notes of a zipper; the whisper of nylon on nylon... the heavy breath of slumber.  Perhaps it had been a specter, stepping briefly between the living on its solitary and secret path.

Or perhaps, he said lying back down, it was a human, tangible like you or I, in the midst of a lively dream.

We did not stay to find out.

In the dewy morning hours we biked along the toes of the mountains.  We biked beside sagebrush and deer, their sable, silent eyes following us.  We biked over a wooden bridge, the ridges humming beneath our tires.  The creek below was rocky; the rocks were rounded and the streams flowed seamlessly through them.  We biked until we found a ranch, tucked between towering pinnacles, then we turned around and biked back through it all again.  We biked until our asses were sore and our armpits were sweaty in the growing heat of the day.