Paradise Awaits?

Everyone has a vacation they will never forget. This is that vacation for the Svensons.

Paradise Awaits?


A Short Story

Written By

SpaceFaction

     Harold Svenson is behind the wheel of their rental car. His hands are almost white as he grips the steering wheel tight as he tries to drive down this rocky road. Tracy Svenson, his wife, sits next to him, trying to read a map. Twisting and turning it in all directions, trying to read it.

     Some of these rocks are quite large. When their rental car sideswipes one of them, it sends it slightly sideways. Harold fights to control their vehicle while his daughter and son, Vivian Svenson and Gregory Svenson, are trying to sleep in the back seat of this rental car.

     Vivian’s head is leaning against the side frame of the door behind her father, Harold, when it slides up the side of it until the top of her head bumps the roof of their rental car. This opens her eyes suddenly. “Ouch, that hurts. What happened?”

     “It’s nothing.” Harold keeps one eye on the bumpy road ahead of him while the other eye is looking at Vivian in his rearview mirror. “I just hit another large rock in the road. There are a million of them on this road.”

     “Are we still taking this road?” Vivian asks. “Why are we still on this road?

     Harold barely misses another large rock that sends Vivian sliding into her little brother, Gregory. This wakes up Gregory. “What’s happening? Are we there?”

     “I thought I told you to put on your seat belts,” says Harold. Harold swerves sharply to avoid another large rock on this road.

     “We don’t have any seat belts to put on,” says Vivian. Vivian looks at Gregory and quickly moves away from him.

     Tracy looks back at Vivian and Gregory. “They don’t have seat belts, but they do have ropes. Put them on.”

     “I already have,” says Gregory. Gregory looks at Vivian as she places her rope around her waist.

     Harold doesn’t avoid another large rock. This sends every bobbing forward slightly. “Why are we still on this road?” Vivian asks.

     “It’s the fastest way to get to our next destination,” says Harold. Harold doesn’t take his eyes off the road as he continues talking to his family.

     “When will we get to this destination?” Vivian asks. “We have been driving down this road for several hours.”

     Tracy looks at her map. “If I’m reading this map correctly, we should get there soon.”

     Harold tries to miss another large rock, but he can’t do it. This shakes all of them slightly. “How soon is soon?” Vivian asks.

     “If this is a shortcut, I would prefer the long way around,” continues Vivian. “We probably would have been there by now if we had taken the long way around.”

     “Why are you saying that?” Harold asks. “Is it because of this rocky road?”

     Harold looks into his rearview mirror with one eye. “Haven’t you ever heard the quote, “Difficult Roads often lead to beautiful destinations.””

     “If that’s true, then we should be heading for a paradise,” Vivian says sarcastically. “I don’t think we are heading for a paradise.”

     “Don’t mind Vivian,” says Gregory. “She’s just mad that you are making her go on this vacation because she misses her boyfriend.”

     “Vivian doesn’t have a boyfriend,” says Harold. “She’s too young to have a boyfriend. After all, she is barely thirteen years old.”

     Looking angrily, Vivian replies. “I’m not too young. A good example of this is this part of our world. If we were living in this country, I would already be married with one or two kids.”

     “It’s a good thing we don’t live in this country,” says Harold. “You’re way too young to be having kids.”

     “Technically, she isn’t too young,” says Tracy. “She started her period a couple of years ago.”

     Vivian looks embarrassed. “Oh, Mom. Don’t talk about that. Especially, in front of my father and my baby brother.”

     “I’m not a baby,” says Gregory somewhat angrily. “I am almost twelve years old.”

     “You are almost eleven and a half,” says Vivian sarcastically. “If you’re lucky, you won’t start puberty for another year.”

     Harold looks in his rearview mirror with one and three-fourths of his eyes. “Will you two stop fighting?” says Harold. “If you don’t, I will turn this car around, and you will go home.”

     “Stop threatening them like that,” says Tracy. “You can’t turn this car around. There isn’t any place on this road for you to do that.”

     “That’s good, father,” says Vivian. “I didn’t want to come on this vacation in the first place.”

     Harold returns to looking at the road in front of them with both his eyes. “I didn’t say we would be going home, just you,” says Vivian. “It’s a long walk back to Missouri.”

     “That’s real good parenting, Father,” says Vivian with an attitude. “Making a girl my age walk around in a country like this.”

     “Besides, you don’t even know where we are,” continues Vivian. “We are lost.”

     Now, Harold looks angry. “We aren’t lost. I know where we are. We’re heading for our next destination. We should be finding our next destination anytime now.”

     About an hour later, Harold suddenly stops their rental car. “We have a big problem. This shortcut has taken longer than I thought it would.”

     “Don’t tell me we ran out of gas,” says Tracy. “You are supposed to use that trick before we are married and have any kids.”

     “Unfortunately, it’s not a trick,” says Harold. “We are almost out of gas.”

     Tracy leans over and looks at their gas level. “I know that we aren’t supposed to have gas in our trunks in case of emergencies like this in the United States, but in this country, we can.”

     “Don’t we have any extra gas in the trunk of this rental car?” Tracy asks.

     “We should have some extra gas, but we don’t. I didn’t think that we needed any extra gas,” answers Harold.

     Tracy looks back at her sleeping kids. “It’s a good thing they are asleep. They don’t need to know what’s going on now. At least, I think they are asleep.”

     “Vivian isn’t asleep,” says Harold. “She’s not talking to herself. She talks to herself when she’s sleeping.”

     “No, she doesn’t. Vivian is talking to her friends on her cell phone when we think she is asleep,” says Tracy.

     Tracy looks down at her maps. “If I’m reading these maps correctly, there are only about two miles before we get to our next destination.”

     “Do you think we can get to our next destination with the gas we have left?” Tracy asks.

     “We should have plenty of gas to get there,” answers Harold. “That’s not our biggest problem. It’s after we get there that I don’t know about. We don’t know how long it will take for us to get some more gas.”

     Harold and Tracy get out of their rental car to look around them. “Some vacation we have booked for ourselves this year,” says Tracy. “It has been one problem after another since we got here.”

     Tracy kicks the tires of their rental car. “Starting with this rental car. We were supposed to get a newer model vehicle. This isn’t it.”

     “We only took this vacation to educate Vivian and Gregory about this part of our world,” continues Tracy. “So far, we have visited six cities here. Vivian and Gregory have learned a lot about these cities.”

     “Each city has been more beautiful than the last one,” continues Tracy as she gets back into their rental car. Harold gets back into their rental car behind the wheel again. “The city we are heading for is supposed to be the most beautiful of them all. If there is such a city as paradise, this city may be it.”

     Tracy looks back at Vivian and Gregory. They appear to still be asleep. She turns her head toward Harold. “What should we do, what can we do, now?”

     Harold looks at Tracy at an angle so he can also see Vivian and Gregory. “I think there is only one thing we can do,” answers Harold. We need to use the remainder of our gas to get to our next destination, and hope we can get some more gas soon after we get there.”

     “Whether we can get this gas may depend on what kind of a paradise this place is,” says Tracy. “If this city is like the others, we shouldn’t have any problems with getting the gas we need, but if it is a paradise, they may be living in a paradise setting; living in the present and the past at the same time, but mainly in the past.”

     Just then, Vivian and Gregory sit up smiling. “We aren’t asleep,” says Vivian. “Gregory and I can see you are worried about something.”

     “We only pretended to be asleep to find out what that something was,” Gregory took over the conversation. “It was the only way we could think of to find out what was going on.”

     “Very sneaky,” says Tracy. “Using your sign language abilities to communicate with each other so we wouldn’t hear you talking to each other, that you learned how to do because of Gregory’s friend.”

     Gregory leaned forward. “Why have we stopped? Are we at our next destination?”

     “Don’t be so stupid,” says Vivian sarcastically. “They already said why we have stopped. We’re out of gas.”

     “We aren’t out of gas,” says Harold. “However, we are almost out of gas.”

     Vivian and Gregory look at each other, and then, their parents. “What are we going to do with our gas situation?” Gregory asks.

     “We’re going to continue toward our next destination,” answers Harold. “We should have enough gas to get to our next destination. After that, we don’t know how long it will take us to find more gas. It depends on how advanced this city is now.”

     “If it’s like the other cities we have visited, this city has advanced in some areas, but it remains in its past in most areas.” Harold doesn’t say anything else; he just starts driving their rental car down this rocky road.

     A few minutes later, their rental car reaches the end of this rocky road. Harold stops their rental car, and everyone gets out of it. They slowly start looking at where they are. It’s beautiful, at least what they can see from where they are above this city slightly.

     “It looks like this city is somewhat in the present, but mainly living in its past. Do we have enough gas to get down there?” Tracy asks.

     “We still have enough gas to get there,” answers Harold. “From what I can see, there shouldn’t be any problem getting more gas when we get there. The outer part of this city is living in the present, and it surrounds the rest of this city that is living in the past.”

     Everyone gets back in their rental car, and Harold starts driving them down a narrow road on the edge of this mountain overlooking the city below them. “No wonder the road was so rocky getting here. I don’t think this city wants too many visitors to visit them.”

     “This place is very beautiful,” says Vivian while looking at the city below them out her left side window behind her father. “It may be even more beautiful than the last city we have visited, but it’s not a paradise.”

Word Count = 1,903