Impossible Places Read Online Free Page A

hospital, I should think, but in the advanced stage such as we see here, immune to simple over-the-counter remedies.” His eyes narrowed sorrowfully as he regarded the sack of skin and bones crumpled on the bed.
    “Once infected, they were doomed. You would have thought that, living here, they would know about this particular parasite and would have taken proper precautions to keep it out of their living quarters. It always astonishes me how little interest some people have in their immediate surroundings.” He raised the specimen. “Observe.”
    The intern reluctantly took the glass tube, twirling it back and forth between his fingers as he studied its single wiry, voracious occupant. “It doesn’t look like much, just one of them.”
    “No,” agreed the doctor. “Not just one.” He stared at the heaving, pulsating mattress, tapped the glass tube. “Notice how much it resembles nothing so innocuous as a human hair?”

DIESEL DREAM
    When the big rig passes you on the road, do you ever
pause to wonder what the driver of that monster of an
amalgam of rubber and steel and petroleum products is
thinking? Do you think he’s just looking out for you and
your fellow drivers? What image do you have of him (or
her)? Chances are it’s wrong. He doesn’t look the way
you think he probably looks, and he doesn’t think the
way you probably think he does.
    Truckers are just folk, more independent than most.
Seamen of the highway, sailing narrow concrete seas, always impatient to make the next port of call and then as
equally impatient to leave it. They get places most of us
never think about, dream dreams the rest of us don’t
have the time for.
    Sometimes, rarely, ports and journeys and dreams all
come together in the oddest ways and places . . .
    Whatthehell. I mean, I know I was wired. Too many white crosses, too long on the road. But a guy’s gotta make a living, and everybody else does it. Everybody who runs alone, anyway. You got a partner, you don’t have to rely on stimulants. You half a married team, that’s even better. But you own, operate, and drive your own rig, you gotta compete somehow. That means always making sure you finish your run on time, especially if you’re hauling perishables. Oh sure, they bring their own problems with ’em, but I’d rather run cucumbers than cordite any day.
    Elaine (that’s my missus), she worries about me all the time. No more so than any trucker’s wife, I guess. Goes with the territory. I try to hide the pills from her, but she knows I pop the stuff. I make good money, though. Better’n most independents. Least I’m not stuck in some stuffy little office listening to some scrawny bald-headed dude chew my ass day after day for misfiling some damn piece of paper.
    Elaine and I had a burning ceremony two years ago. Mortgage officer from the bank brought over the paper personal and stayed for the burgers and beer. Now there’s a bank that understands. Holds the paper on our house, too. One of these days we’ll have another ceremony and burn that sucker, too.
    So I own my rig free and clear now. Worked plenty hard for it. I’m sure as hell not ready to retire. Not so long as I can work for myself. Besides which I got two kids in college and a third thinking about it. Yep, me. The big guy with the green baseball cap and the beard you keep seein’ in your rearview mirrors. Sometimes I can’t believe it myself.
    So what if I use the crosses sometimes to keep going? So what if my eyesight’s not twenty-twenty every hour of every day? Sure my safety record’s not perfect, but it’s a damnsight better than that of most of these young honchos who think they can drive San Diego–Miami nonstop. Half their trucks end up as scrap, and so do half of them.
    I know when I’m getting shaky, when it’s time to lay off the little white mothers.
    Anyway, like I was gonna tell you, I don’t usually stop in Lee Vining. It’s just a flyspot on the atlas, not even a real truck