Photo by Kyle Szegedi on Unsplash
The damp reached its oxidizing claws toward the abandoned VW camper. The cheerful sky blue outside an affront to its power. Even though the daisy and flower decals long ago succumbed to its strength, peeling back the paper and glue, the metal sides continued to shrug off its assault year after year. Not heat, frost, or cold mattered.
Vandals and homeless equally tried to leave their mark, attempting to break windows or streak the side with obscene and vulgar messages. Only one tag stayed after the assailant left, a beautiful mural of a mother holding a baby who transformed into a solider, died, had flowers grow and another child, clearly related to the solider, was shown running with flowers in hand to a grandmother. Even that artistry did not stand up to the onslaught of time and elements.
The only thing left was the annoying cheerful sky blue van-a-gon, waiting for its driver to return from a long-forgotten concert held near the field where the vehicle had been abandoned. The damp pulled back as the sun raised above the hill, cursing its failure in dozens of spiraling evaporation trails as heat dissolved the dew.
Sometime later the vehicle sighed, a shifting of metal during the heat of the day. Sliding side doors became arms, wheels became hands and feet. The robot stumbled as it stood in his true form for the first time in decades.
“Man, what a trip.” He looked at the sky stretching from horizon to horizon, as blue as his body. Missing his driver and the group of Deadheads they gathered crossing the country, and their multi-colored smokes filling his cabin-lungs, he sighed again, “Guess it’s time to peace out.”
The damp screamed its frustration in unending steam as the metal body launched itself into the waterless void of space.
(Words 303; first published 2/17/2019)
