The outside world was unknown to her, but she could see a glimpse of it through the window in his room. His room being her current fling, Stavros. Mia looked to him to see that he was still sprawled out on the bed; naked and asleep. She turned back to the window and gazed out of it to the distance. It was very depressing to look out and see an empty plain with such twisted, dead-looking plants. And what little grass was out there was turning brown and decayed.
“Why am I here?” She whispered to herself as she picked up her steaming hot cup of tea and gazed into it as if it held the answers to her questions. “How did I get here?”
Looking back out the window, her eyes landed on the cloudless blue sky. It looked like it is going to be a warm day. That in itself was a small miracle.
“Maybe today is the day.” Mia thought to herself as she took a long sip of her tea.
She had been planning to escape this small village to find out what was truly out there. Just before she died, her mother told her about a whole world out there that was very different from the dying village of De Moir. This village was a farming community where it’s ruled by the tight-fist of Dominque De Moir, who not only owns this town but was the owner and proprietor of the sawmill. If you weren’t a farmer, that was the only place to get any kind of work there.
Mia worked as a messenger: passing packages, letters, etc. on her motorcycle. The job was okay but of course the pay was lousy. Dominque was a penny-pincher in everything he did. Still Mia found joy in just riding her motorcycle, feeling the wind in her hair, the rush of speed pressing into her body. This was the only thing that made her feel alive in this dusty destitute world that she was forced to live in.
Resolved, Mia set the cup on the old wooden drawer and walked into the bathroom to get her gear on. No way was Dominique going to shoot her for trying to ride out of this screwy county the way he had always threatened to.
*****.
Outside and clothed in her black leather outfit, Mia held onto her helmet while she looked out to the sunny horizon. She breathed in the fresh air, that promised a better life outside of her prison. She placed her helmet on her head and walked to her vintage Harley Davidson. The open road called and it said a new life had awaited her. Mia straddled her bike and turned on the ignition. With a rev and a kick-off, Mia rode down the long dirt road.
She felt that same freeing feeling that she got every time she sailed on her motorcycle but this time it was a little different. Her happiness was whole and hope filled her heart. She had officially left De Moir for good. She smiled as she looked into her rear-view mirror at the small wooden shacks and the high damning sawmill gradually disappear.
“Freedom…freedom…freedom.” She heard the wind call as she sped up towards the county line.
It was so close and it only got closer until she felt a hard sharp push to the center of her spine. Mia tumbled off her motorcycle which fell and spun around on the road. She landed hard on the ground and rolled until she was face up and looking at the bright blue sky. At first she felt nothing but that is quickly replaced with a splitting pain that spread out through her body as she became drenched in her own blood.
The sound of crunching gravel echoed around her. Not one but three sets of steps Mia heard but could not face until the three men stood over her. Two of them she didn’t recognize but by the sheer hateful expressions in their eyes, she could tell that they were thugs. One of them was carrying a sniper gun. That was the moment that Mia realized she was shot in the back. The last man she looked up at as she began to choke was the sinister emotionless face of Dominique De Moir.
He crouched down and looked down at her before putting a gun between Mia’s eyes. “No one leaves the De Moir County.”
A loud bang sounds out that frightens off all the big black birds as they fly out of the dead trees. All that is left now is silence.
