Hitchhiking to the Black Sea
He came back from the register, having bought two chocolate bars as well. The driver’s door of the pickup truck clicked shut following a long, low squeak. He turned the ignition key. Without saying a word, he handed one of the chocolate bars to his passenger as he turned from the gas station onto the main road.
It took nearly 40 minutes before she broke the silence; they had left the outskirts of Sofia quite a while ago. Between Sofia and Vakarel, the Trakia motorway winds its way through the hilly countryside. A railway line runs parallel to it, coming close to the motorway in some sections and disappearing from view a bit later.
“Thank you.” She was slowly munching on the chocolate bar, half of which was still wrapped in the crinkly paper, and it wasn’t clear whether she was thanking him for that or for giving her a lift. With the half-eaten candy bar in her hand, her gaze lingered for minutes on the little skull dangling from a chain attached to the rear-view mirror. Her hand, holding the chocolate bar, rested relaxed on her knee and swayed slightly from side to side as he steered, and the little skull dangled in sync with each movement. There was an air of timelessness in her pensive gaze, the long pauses she took while chewing, and in the way she passively allowed to be gently rocked by the movements of the car as it glided over bumps or leaned into the long bends of the motorway. Ironically, the skull symbolises vanitas, as well as the chocolate bar in her hand, which must have gradually melted, inevitably conveyed a sense of transience.
All of a sudden, she hastily put the candy bar down and turned round in her seat — with some difficulty due to her lower paraplegia, and she had to brace herself against the seat cushion with her hands — to cast a somewhat anxious glance through the rear window. Out there on the flatbed of the pick-up truck stood her motorized wheelchair, securely fastened with straps. It was softly swaying in perfect synchrony with the dangling skull.
After making sure the wheelchair was safely on board, she settled back into her seat, which again required support from her arms and upper body. She continued to gaze at the dangling skull; it seemed that it gave her a soothing sense of calm to fix her gaze on that spot, which was making little fidgety movements but nevertheless remained in the same position relative to her. The half-eaten candy bar in its wrap had fallen between the driver’s and passenger’s seats. Given her paraplegia, it would have taken a tremendous effort for her to reach it.
He kept his hands on the steering wheel and his eyes fixed on the road, following the gentle curves of the Trakia motorway. By then, they had passed Ihtiman, and the railroad tracks briefly came back into view. “You’re welcome,” he replied.