#8 Malcolm Crow – Rider

The desert unfolds underneath the tires of my bike, stretching as far as the eye can see. I’m the only living thing for miles around, except for scorpions and sagebrush. Some people say that isolation isn’t good for humans, that is makes us forget how to be human. But that’s not what being alone does to me. It reminds how to be a human.

From my viewpoint, I’ve always been alone. My father left before I was born, my mother checked out soon after. She was still there, but not in any way that mattered. So I raised myself as best I could, which wasn’t really all that good to be honest.

I starting out making bad friends, which led me to make bad decisions, and those led to bad situations. By the time I was thirty, I was so deep in there were only two ways out, death or prison. I guess that I was one of the lucky ones that made it to prison.

A decade inside taught me many things, but the most important was that I wasn’t going back. I took my forty dollars and got on a bus. I didn’t get off until I ran out of money.

And now I’m here. Alone in the desert, making ends meet through odd work here and there. It’s nothing like it used to be, when I walked the streets like I owned them. But it doesn’t matter. No one cares about me here me. They don’t even remember me when I’m not there. I’m just one more drifter traveling through the desert, trying to get by.

Category: 2011, Drama