Distracted, befuddled, bewildered and not concentrating on the right things.

Sorry... My mind is doing its own thing again.

I wrote this...

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The truck passed a notice on a telegraph post but neither the passenger or the driver could see any of the words, because of the truck bouncing and lurching on the potholed road into town.

Dirk caught the colours of the sign and when he spotted another, he yelled over the noise of the tyres. “Slow it down, Jaimie! I want to read the sign!”

“No you don’t!” she yelled back. “It’ll only give you another reason to quit!”

“I’m not a quitter!” Dirk yelled back, but he knew it and she knew it – any excuse, even the slightest reason to back out and he’d grasp it. He sat back into the truck’s front seat and looked down at the floor of the truck. Dirk had never been a great traveller and he regretted looking down. The filth and litter on the floor of the truck didn’t help the queasy feeling in his stomach and he closed his eyes. A pocket of gas made its way up from his unsettled stomach and he belched.

“Ulp, oh jeeze, I’m gonna puke!” he said, grasping for the door. He fumbled for the window-winder and started winding down the window as fast as his arm would go.

Jaime looked from the road to her passenger and back to the road a few times to check on him.

“Don’t you puke in my truck!” she screamed at him.

“Trying not to,” he said, frantically winding the window with one hand, holding his other hand over his mouth to try to stop his gorge rising.

The truck slewed to a halt, swerved across the tarmac as it stopped and Jaime took it out of gear, leaving it to idle.

He grasped hold of the lever to open the door before she’d stopped and he fell out of the truck as it bounced on the suspension.

She put the truck’s handbrake on and clambered out of the same door he’d fallen from. She found him at the roadside, considerately puking into the bushes off the side of the road. Jaime faltered as she heard the wet splatter of the contents of his stomach hitting the ground. She grimaced, turned around to walk away, but then she turned back to Dirk. She leaned forward a little and rubbed his shoulders with both hands. She passed him a serviette that came with the fast-food package they’d bought on the way out of town.

“You ok, champ?” she said in a kind voice.

“Why do you put up with me, Jamie? Why do you go to these lengths to help me fit in?” he said, wiping his mouth with the serviette.

“Because I love you, you dope! I know you have a lot to offer, it’s just that we have to get the others to see it too,” she said.

“And they’ll see it if I complete this stupid dare?” Dirk said. He stood up straight and threw the serviette onto the puddle of puke. He checked the front of his jeans and shirt, then started making his way back to the truck behind Jamie. Then he had another thought. He stopped and checked his shoes, the fronts of both and then the soles.

The soles of his shoes were covered with the thick grey dust that covered the landscape and he wiped them both on the tarmac before getting back into the truck.

“You wiped your feet before getting into the truck?” Jamie said from her vantage point in the driver’s seat.

Dirk looked at her with a look of bewilderment on his face. “Yeah, they were dusty,” he said.

Jamie cracked up. “Your name almost fits you,” she said. You’re such a dork, Dirk!”

“Never heard that one before,” he said and despite the puking session, he smiled at her. She put the idling truck in gear and started off again even before he closed the door behind him.

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I have nothing else. No title, no plot, no other characters, no scenery... just the hint of horror (to come), a hot-wired truck and two kids - one dorky and the other a bit of a tearaway.

Oh boy, my brain...