“Hey, honey, did you girls fall asleep back there?”
Julie’s brain was clicking on and off, constantly switching between the darkness of sleep and the vivid lights of reality. She heard her mother’s voice reaching out to her in the background, but it sounded far away and faint, like the sleepy sound of waves breaking on the beach. Last thing she remembered was pulling out of the airport, her head resting against the car window, watching incoming and outgoing flights. And then her eyes just closed. She always enjoyed the soothing sensation that came with sleeping inside a moving vehicle: the icy glass squeezing against her cheek; the light vibrations absorbed through her temple; the way her teeth and car engine chattered in unison. It was almost orgasmic in a way.
For how long have we been driving? Julie wondered dreamily. Ten minutes? An hour? Time and place were still a blur as she slowly detached from the realms of her dreams. When she opened her eyes, she was greeted with the sight of pale blue skies above the faded color of green. They were the colors of winter in Vermont.