Three Miles Off the Highway Past Exit 509 by Jo Gatford

*THE BLUE FROG 2^nd PLACE WINNER*

Al sells inflatable aliens in the parking lot outside the taco place with the sun-bleached sign; an army of little grey men with suspicious eyes and blow-up valves on their butts. There’s a steady stream of customers—for tacos and aliens—even though they’re way off the main route, the only square of concrete for miles, with an inch of dust coating every surface and a glowing pink sombrero you can see from the highway.

People like to go out to the desert, take a bunch of psychedelics, get all dehydrated and convince themselves they saw something, then nurse the come-down with an all-day breakfast burrito. And maybe they’ll grab a couple rubber mementos before heading back to wherever they came from; onward to wherever they’re headed.

Some don’t even bother with the desert part. Just take a picture with the sign so they can say they were here. And if they wander over to Al’s stall and ask if he ever saw anything, he already has his story rolled up tight beneath his tongue.

— Sure, sure, more than once.

Casual-like, while he rearranges his stock. They’ll press him for details. Specifics. Sometimes cynical, sometimes breathless, always hungry. And he’ll give them a half-smile. Squint off into the horizon.

— Well, y’know. Hard to describe. Memories get strange out there.

When it feels like the desert wants to swallow you right up.

His audience will exchange looks. An underbreath laugh they think he won’t notice. Depending on their age and sass they’ll ask if he got his ass probed or made a mountain out of mashed potatoes and he’ll laugh along and say he knows it all sounds crazy, that he’d never believe it either if he hadn’t seen it with his own naked eyes—felt it in the air, all around, like a bucket of bees, like lightning about to strike.

— Y’ever felt that? In a rainstorm? Like there’s metal in the water?

He forgot about the warnings, but the rain came racing down from the mountains like a team of dark horses and there was nothing else to shelter beneath.

Whatever face they make, he’s pretty sure none of them knows what the fuck he’s talking about. Most of them’ve never really been out somewhere like that, in nature—the bareness of it—nothing from horizon to horizon but your own doubt.

— Then BAM, lightnin’ and thunder right on top of each other. Saw a tree catch fire like that, once.

He should’ve lain flat on the ground but he was just a stupid kid and the tree was right there, calling to him—all desert-blown right angles, reaching up to the sky—a thousand voices calling in disharmony, connected by a tangle of roots and the loneliness of a rock.

He’ll go astray and they’ll look uncertain, maybe jump at the BAM part, wonder if he’s tinfoil nuts or if that’s how everyone around here is. He’ll pick up one of the little aliens, the ones with a squeaker in the belly, and give it a squeeze—something tangible to bring him back.

— Anyway, that’s what it feels like, before they arrive.

The light struck like an ax in his skull. Like hitting sheet metal with a hammer. It split the tree, left a fire burning inside, fused the sand at its base to glass. It knocked him down and held him there, waves of reverberations rolling over his skin. He watched the flames eat up his left sleeve; looked up to see lightning crawling the sky like a web, like time had stopped.

Their eyes’ll flare anew. They’re eager for it. Whether they believe or not. For whatever it was that left him those ragged edge scars; his mercury slowness.

He’ll let his voice get low, reel them in closer, so they forget the stupid plastic figure in his hand, let their imaginations get to work.

— You gotta get deep out there. Get to where manmade light don’t reach.

The rain still fell but there were no clouds—just stars and electricity, connecting the dots.

They’ll glance up at the pink sombrero, try to judge how far they’ll have to walk before the glow fades into a smudge. It’s always farther than they think.

— Then you gotta get real quiet. Wait til it turns cold. Keep your eyes on the mountains.

And the voices, all of them at once. Words he would never recall. Metallic tears following the hollow of his cheek into his ear.

Because they don’t need a promise. They just need permission to believe.

To the east, he’ll clarify, because they don’t know their asshole from their cakehole, and they’ll thank him as though they’re bleeding out and he’s given them directions to the hospital. The younger ones’ll get all giggly. Older ones’ll nod like they’ve heard it all already. Some of them, guys and gals alike, will look at him new, like they’re trying to find something attractive in his face to match the surety in his tone. He’ll brush it off, pull his cap down and gesture wide at the scrubland, maybe give a farewell plastic squeak to send them on their way—to remember him by.

— Y’all come back and let me know how you get on, okay?

They won’t. They never do.

He doesn’t say:

Don’t tell anyone else what you saw. Don’t become a local headline and a police report. Don’t end up in a parking lot with a lungful of latex air and memories that skip like a flatstone lake.

They’ll thank him again. Or maybe they won’t. They’ll turn their backs and whatever happens out there will happen out there without his knowing if what he told them was true or not.

And when they close up the taco place, someone’ll bring Al a silver package of leftovers that glints under the pink neon, and he’ll unplug the alien butts one by one, keep his eyes eastward, watching for lights creeping over the mountain.

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JO GATFORD — Jo is a short writer who writes short things. Her work has most recently been published by The Oxford Prize, Stanchion, The Fiction Desk and Cease, Cows. Some of her writing even wins prizes, which is extremely nice. She is also a novelist, poet and scriptwriter, and edits other people’s words for her supper. More at www.jogatford.com or on X, Bluesky and instagram @jmgatford.

Art by RURI KATO — Ruri is an artist based in Tokyo, Japan. Her current artwork primarily focuses on the experience of isolation. She explores the process of finding sanctuary within oneself and the world often in the most mundane of places, like the sunlight or a moment with an energetic colleague that carries on the conversation while you are in the toilet cubicle. Ruri currently works in a range of mediums, including gouache, pencils, and digital. She also enjoys a private project of writing fantastical stories, with accompanying illustrations.