As I set off down my driveway to find myself or to clear my head I wasn’t sure which. My mother yelling behind me,
“Be careful, you never know what could happen!”
“I’ll be fine mom!” I scream back “nothing ever happens here!” So I’m off feet stomping on the pavement, as I put in my ear pods.
Turning up the music as I drown out the world outside, and inside my mind, each thought fighting for priority over another. Smiling to cars that are being ridden by neighbors I couldn’t care less about. I made my way along the main road. Passing houses that that looks like something out of a stereotypical suburban development. White picket fences, children playing in their yards without a care in the world, but that’s how it should be.
They shouldn’t worry; they have the rest of their lives to do that. It’s nothing out of the ordinary, a beautiful fall day in fact as a pull out my ear pod to take it all in. The blue sky with clouds scattered around that look like a painting from long ago. A renaissance painting with its picture perfect beauty. Birds chirping as they skip from tree to tree still green, holding on to the little time they have left. Squirrels and chipmunks run up and down maples and oaks like my mother on Thanksgiving, running around with ten dishes in her hands. A soft breeze blows by the air crisp like and for a moment I’m back in Colorado where the air is always cleaner in the purple and blue mountains. I put in my ear pods again resuming into my own little world, “I don’t Wanna be in Love” by Good Charlotte pounding in my ears. I find myself at the end of the beginning.
My hiding spot in sight, but I turn my back to look at something in the woods that lined the road. Not hearing the truck behind me screeching to a halt. I start to look back then.

Darkness.

“What the hell?!” I scream I felt strong rough hands close around my mouth.
“Quiet you!” his voice just like is hands. Suffocating, so tight, to tight. Picking me up, all the while I was valiantly kicking and muffled screams trying to escape through the thick cloth around my face. None the less, I am picked up and tossed into a back seat like I was nothing more than a toothpick.
Then a thought goes through me like an electric shock, I have been kidnapped, I am suddenly limp no longer strong enough to continue to fight. My captor clearly ignoring my now lifeless body as I hear him get in the driver’s seat and slam the door closed. The engine is started as my heart sinks, what to do? How am I going to escape?
Wow, this car stinks. The smell of a bar seeps through my veil and I’m suddenly appreciative of the fact that I don’t have to get the full effect of cigarettes and cheap beer. Getting tossed around like a fish out of water I can feel my body bruising, turning sickly colors of purple, blue and green. This guy clearly shouldn’t have passed the drivers test and clearly didn’t plan very well because he didn’t bind my hands. I’ll thank him for his idiocy later.
So he wouldn’t realize I wasn’t going to let myself get taken I kept the bag over my head. My captor tapping his fingers on the searing wheel to “The Thunder Rolls” by Garth Brooks, as I plan my escape. Inching my way up to a seated position, hoping mystery man doesn’t see me. Wincing with every movement, I bite my tongue to keep myself from crying out. Every bump in the road sending a stabbing pain up my back, putting stars in my vision of total blackness. Hiding behind what I hoped was the driver’s seat, I resume forming my brilliant plan … that has yet to come to mind.
Ha! I got this, I have seen way to many cop shows to not know what to do! With that solid thinking to boost my spirits, I realize that my hands, acting upon their own accord. Start to snake up the driver’s seat to where the seat belt is located right before it disappears into the car. My left hand grabs the seatbelt without a moment of hesitation my right hand finds his neck. Then the seatbelt is wrapped around his neck, a gasp of surprise escaped his lips.
I rip off my head cover put my lips very close to his ears “You are going to drive me back to where you found me, Got it !” the malice in my voice even scared me a little as I tighten his noose.
The man nodded, eyes widened in shock of what just had occurred. Releasing that this was the first time I have seen the man I did a quick survey of the man, hands still holding tightly to my way home.
He was a rough man, desperate need of a shave that scraped and tickled where it came in contact with my hands. Face wrinkled with stress, alcohol on his breath. It reeked off of him like after a rain on a hot summer’s day, hitting me in waves that were making me queasy. He wore faded blue jeans that should have been retired to the trash a long time ago, with an off white muscle tee that showed off his beer belly, not his muscles.
I kept the seat belt tight as he turned around, heading back to where it all began. I figured he decided that I wasn’t worth the trouble, and that was fine by me. I look out the window to get my bearings. Okay so I’m about 5 minutes from home. Man, how long have I been gone? The cornfield comes in to view on my right, already been stripped of its growth. Cubes scattered around the land, only remnants of many months of labor. The hidden entrance to my neighborhood comes into view, but my captor knows exactly where it is. He slows down, turns into the entrance and stops. Looking straight at my through the rear view mirror.
“Don’t you dare come back here again!” in a voice more like a growl than words, I say into his ear. Loosen his snare just enough for me to get out, then I let go. The moment of tension was so thick you could have cut through it.
“B****” he mumbled under his breath. I just smiled, for I know I have won. He backed out of the entrance to my territory, and sped off. Glaring at his truck till it was out of sight, and as soon as it was, I collapsed on to the grass beside the road. Legs no longer able to bear my weight. My breath came quick and uneven as I struggled to process what had just happened to me. Then as I lay on the cool crunchy grass, I laughed. A quiet chuckle at first then a laugh not known to me almost an evil laugh. I just got kidnapped and escaped! I thought to myself in almost disbelief. Okay, okay time to pull it together. As I get up and walk towards home. Remembering my IPod in my pocket I pull out my ear pods and putting them in to distract myself. As I put them in “Jailbreak” by AC/DC blasting into my ears and I laugh to myself in the irony of it all.
I walk home, as if nothing had happened. Making sure to keep my mind focused, on anything mostly my music. My white picket fences were still there and so were those kids still playing in their yard. It was still such a gorgeous day, and yet somehow the colors seem just a little bit more vivid, the air just a little sweeter, my house a little bit more welcoming. I walk up my driveway then into the house. My mother sitting on her favorite chair in the sunroom looking away from me at the book on her lap.
She turns “Hey why’d you take so long?” she says with idle concern. “Sorry Mom, I lost track of time.”