The Prophet of Endless Night

Elena Malkov

The road splays over the slight curve of the land, fitting itself into hillsides and stretching flat over the fields. I am driving a very long way. Hundreds of miles more, and the landscape won’t change much. A town will pop up, greeting drivers by with the opaque glow of fast food signs and farm supply stores. Eventually I’ll stop at an identical town, pull off at a familiar exit and let the past wash over me in its strange newness. 

My car is named Zethar, it is dark purple with a silvery sheen and I love it in the way we love things we don’t understand⎯with fear, with hope. We have made this journey before, thousands of miles ago.

The only thing I can do for Zethar myself are fill up the gas tank and wash the windows (though never without leaving streaks), but I have learned to listen closely for the subtle changes in its sounds, its handling. Is there a grinding noise when I brake? Is the steering wheel jerking to the left? But still I only go to the mechanic when a light pops up on the dashboard or Zethar doesn’t start. 

We’ve been together a long time. We’d be best friends were it not for the fact that I know nothing about it. Zethar is a beautiful but terrifying mystery⎯especially now, when there’s only $200 in my bank account and my AAA membership is expired. I listen to Zethar’s noises raptly. And I think I hear a sharp tinny squeal, but it might just be a distant siren wailing.

I glance at the map on my phone and see there are still around a hundred miles until the exit. So far its been an uneventful drive⎯

Zethar’s gauges all suddenly point to zero, the dashboard lights blink out, the engine dies. We come to a complete standstill in the middle of the highway. Behind me someone honks, then passes with a flinging of hand gestures out the window. 

I manage to restart Zethar, pull over and sit for a moment, trying to collect myself. 

When I put the key back in the ignition, the car doesn’t want to wake up. I look at my phone for a few minutes, hoping a magical solution will present itself, but as always every desperate Google search leads only to forums full of car dads spouting helpful-unhelpful tips I cannot comprehend. 

Can’t really afford it, but I look for the nearest mechanic and find one five miles away. I try Zethar again and⎯miraculously!⎯it awakens. We drive the five miles, me holding my breath.

I see the garage as soon as I exit the highway. The office is just a long narrow closet attached to its side. The owner (I assume) sits inside, a pale lumpy mass in a large padded rocking chair, walled in by a desk littered with papers. I tell him what happened, he scrawls something silently on a notepad, nods his head at the door, and mumbles that Jim will take a look once he’s done. Walking back outside, I see Jim talking to the only other customer, a middle-aged man with an unplaceable accent, speaking with many elaborate gesticulations. His sedan is hoisted six feet up in the air.

Not even a bench to sit on. I pace. I wish I hadn’t quit smoking. I check my phone but there is no service. 

Eventually the other man lets Jim lower the car and goes into the office to pay. Jim looks at me silently. 

“Um, hello! So, my car was being super weird on the highway?” Jim doesn’t react. “I was driving and it just completely stopped working. Everything shut down. And then I couldn’t start it at first but then I could and drove here? Can you take a look at it please?”

Jim is a head shorter than me, thin dry hair smattered over his scalp and bony lopsided features. His teeth cluster at the front of his mouth, as though there’s not enough room for them in his jaw. 

“Sure I’ll check it out,” he says, reaching a palm out for the keys.

I surrender Zethar to the inverted abyss of the garage. Trying not to stare at Jim while he works, though there is nothing else to look at. No stores around. A gas pump out front (questionably functional: looks mid-century) and an empty ice box by the entrance.

Trying to see how long I can go without looking at my phone, but it’s never more than three minutes.

Finally Jim lowers Zethar’s gleaming dust-plum carapace and walks over to me.

“Nothing wrong with your car.”

“Really? I told you, it completely shut off on the road, just died. And nothing’s wrong with it?”

Jim shrugs. “I checked everything. Looks good.”

I try to think of a response. 

“It’s 20 bucks for service. Pay him,” he nods at the office.

I go in and pay, get back in the car, and head towards the highway.

For the next hour there’s no problem, Zethar is silent. I don’t turn on any music and just focus on the hum of the engine for 60 full minutes. I should be getting close now, but when I check the map on my phone (service finally restored), I’ve driven just a few miles. 

As I try to figure out how that’s even mathematically possible, a screech tears from the front of the car and the steering wheel begins to jerk in my hands. Pulling over, terrified, I grab my phone and try to figure out what happened. I search “car screech noise steering wheel shakes” but none of the sites coming up seem right, or I’m having trouble reading the words on the screen. Accidentally click on an ad for new brake pads and for some reason go through the motions of placing an order, mechanically entering my credit card number, stopping just short of hitting the submit button. I frantically close the screen and start scrolling through my contacts, trying to find someone I know who’s nearby or knows something about cars, but don’t recognize most of the names flowing beneath my fingers.

The road stretches before me, glimmers of dusk on the horizon. I’ve left myself back home and stretching out westward has only loosened my claim on reality⎯I wonder if I have any original thoughts left, any faith or purpose.

Keys back in the ignition, Zethar is acting normal again. 

We plunge quickly into twilight, thick coating of shadow on the road. Fewer cars now so I’m going fast, hoping I can actually make it there before dark. I try not to keep glancing at the map, turn the screen off for half an hour, but somehow only manage to cover five miles. 

I scream. I growl. I curse. I beat the steering wheel with my palms then grab my phone and fling it to the floor. It slips under the seat and there’s no way to get it back out without stopping. The sky is darkening and there are almost no other cars, certainly no people, not even gas stations now. I make a halfhearted attempt to paw around under the seat, but I can’t do much without completely ducking under the wheel and driving myself off the road.

Okay. I think I remember: exit 147. I just drove past the 95-mile marker. I can do this. 

Where I’m coming from, autumn is just starting to whisper through the trees. The air sharpens and the leaves begin to dapple gold. Soon they will all transform and, during a heavy rain, plummet to the ground, coating it with a carpet of yellow and red. I remember walking through them in years past⎯a sea of wet leaves enveloping my sodden shoes and a feeling of absolute lightness in my heart.

And now, back to the primordial ooze. Out west. The past, the pastoral, burnt out poesy. I don’t know why I even decided to do this. The world in crisis, about to twist itself into pieces, I’m on an ill-planned road trip. And I can’t even get there.

Darkness shatters over the pavement. Zethar emits a quiet hiss.

There’s no way to get to where I’m going; there’s no road to the past. I wander through the thickest of night in a car whose engine is speaking an incomprehensible language.

Then⎯mile marker 96. A few minutes later⎯97. I’m making progress. Just 50 more miles. 

As soon as I relax in my seat, the car begins its sibilant song again. 

I let out a dry sob. Zethar hisses louder, as though in response to my exasperation. I stroke the steering wheel in halfhearted consolation. 

Getting tired. Ignoring the sound, hoping it goes away on its own or works itself through somehow or at least doesn’t get worse until I arrive. Not long left now. The next mile marker I spot reads 99. I thought more time has passed. It’s already 9 o’clock. I’ve gone two miles in, what, 20 minutes? The speedometer hasn’t wavered. The engine or whatever begins to sputter in choked plosives, the thin red arrows in the dashboard gauges jerking side to side.

The clock is now blinking 12:00. Broken. That must be why I couldn’t keep track of time earlier! Briefly calmer, I feel my mind fog and my eyelids get heavier. I wish I could stop somewhere to buy an energy drink, feel the fizz in my mouth and the muscles behind my eyes tightening to hold the lids open. 

The next mile marker is 99 again. This time I pull over, despite the gloom enclosing the edges of the road. Scream and scream, tears burning hot in my eyes. I turn Zethar off in hopes of quieting the discontent under its hood and plummet into darkness as all the glowing details of the dashboard and headlights turn off.

No other cars on the highway. I sit in silence for a few moments, stunned at my own rashness but too frightened to move. Then, with a heavy dread balled up at the top of my spine I start the car⎯it mumbles heavily and doesn’t turn over. Again I utter several dry desperate sobs. I take out the key, put it back in the ignition, and Zethar comes to glorious life. Engine muted, we roll away, my jaw clenched with the titanium grip of foreboding.

Back to the road, back to counting mile markers. I don’t want to turn on the radio⎯all my stations are set to old frequencies and the thought of scrolling through static on this strange night makes me physically ill.

It takes another hour to reach marker 100. By now my eyes are clouded with tears, my cheeks chapping from the salt. The heat is blasting on max but still I shiver. My foot is frozen on the gas pedal

I wish I could stop and retrieve my phone from beneath the passenger seat. Maybe I have a few missed calls and texts by now, everyone wondering why I’m late.

Or⎯is it that I haven’t told anyone I’m coming? Is it a surprise? I can’t recall.

Which exit do I get off at? 147? 148? I think both will bring me to roughly the same area, but I realize now I don’t even remember how to get from the highway to the house. It’s a blur of roads in my mind. I was planning on arriving early enough in the day to let my memory guide me through the streets but now it’s hopeless.

The hissing persists, punctuated by discontented grinding noises that shake the steering wheel. Something is horribly wrong with Zethar and I can’t remember the last time I noticed any promise of civilization. I can’t remember the last time I ate anything. It is deep night. 

I think again about the mechanic who checked out my car. Already I can’t recall his features. 

But⎯I do retain some memories of longer ago. Reflected light bouncing off the walls, my mother’s perfume on the telephone receiver, dirty snow glinting on the pavement. Not memories so much as churnings of a frightful mind no longer extant. Malformed things, mostly a confusion of feelings stored with the absolute knowledge that their portent would remain vivid forever.

I no longer see mile markers, only the few feet of road ahead revealed by the soft headlights. The car’s noises have assimilated into my auditory landscape.

I am still moving forward but the car no longer covers any distance⎯we have broken into perpetuity. Its malfunctions transported us both into the shadow of the only moment and so we drive drive drive down the highway, the miles expanding into a blank eternity. 

We fade, unremembered, unmourned⎯finally⎯into the night.

Image: Lauren Coleman (2015), Wikimedia Commons