there are three packs of camel golds sitting by loki on the curb.
it's not as dramatic as it looks, of course. she'd been on the end of a pack, smoked her way through a full one, and dipped back inside the gas station for the third which she was just starting on. the clerk at the counter had not looked at her, but loki didn't have any protests about it. she's here because it's liminal. she's here because it's past two in the morning and the only lights for five miles either way are here, in all their quietly buzzing fluorescence.
the only anything for five miles either way is here, and loki sits on the edge of it. a pair of sandals that should have broken in months ago now; short shorts in the syrupy summer heat, the curly mass of her hair for once clipped up off her neck. loki, sitting on the curb at the head of a parking spot, at the place where the lot becomes the grass becomes the open space and too-wide too-starred night sky.
the same ford truck in a different color every 20 minutes or so has been at pump 3, and loki's not sure what city or town she's outside of. this is somewhere, she's sure. north texas? she's been aching to get out of the loud, no more new york, no more chicago, no more miami. not until winter or not without reason, which it's likely her more human habits will become more quickly than she'd prefer.
it's ridiculous, how loud the scraping flick of her lighter is, the sizzle of burning tobacco. she's getting restless, now, turns and eyes the landscape behind her, off southeast. there's a line of trees that she doubts anyone else would be able to pick out. a few miles.
cover from the night sky bearing down and the sense of being closely watched by too much nothing. can't even get free from it in the middle of nowhere, and the more she sits the more she looks over to the trucker's area on the other side of the lot the more she itches and maybe that's why the clerk hadn't thought twice about her at all.
fucking texas. loki discards her two empty packs in the garbage bin on her way down past the tall sign proclaiming unleaded at $1.92, and starts out southbound on the shoulder of the highway.
