1. The Hitchhiker, narrated by Blair Gilbert

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Song of the Day | Suburbia by Press Club | Spotify | YouTube

Heat shimmered up from the dry, rolling hills and met the edge of a vast blue sky. There wasn’t a cloud in sight, just the biggest, deepest blue Soda Jones had ever seen. Her ancient Toyota Corolla wheezed in the high temperatures and she patted its cracked dashboard lovingly.

“Come on love, let’s go home.”

She drove onwards down the barely-paved road, and squinted at her phone. Still dead. Was worth a try. She hadn’t passed another car for an hour, and she was starting to feel nervous.

Rusty barbed wires hung between rotting fence-posts, and the occasional cluster of cows, were all the evidence she could see of any kind of civilisation whatsoever. All she knew was that she was a few hours north and west of Brisbane, an area referred to as the Scenic Rim, but currently mostly just cow paddocks. Her air conditioning didn’t work, and she felt hot and grumpy and extremely fed up.

“I don’t have time for this shit!” She exclaimed, again.

Not strictly true: she was unemployed and therefore had plenty of time, but that frightened her too much to contemplate.

The fetid Queensland summer fanned her bad temper. With no phone to hook up to the stereo, the silence was sending various scenarios running back through her head for the millionth time. On a whim she hit the play button on the cassette deck, not expecting much. To her surprise, The Kooks jumped out of the speakers, crackly and rough with heat damage but still there. She wasn’t ready for that. A few rebellious tears leaked out behind her sunglasses. She swiped at them furiously and smiled despite herself. Frank, her father, had made the tape for her when she was a teenager getting into music. She was reminded of him all the time; she lived in his house after all. But music had a way of writing itself into her deepest memories and the grief caught her like a slap.

She glanced at the dusty old joints on her passenger seat and sighed. It was super inappropriate but she felt like circumstances warranted it. She stuck one between her lips and lit it, puffing moodily.

“Fuckin’ Mick.”

She cursed her housemate and his stupid harebrained ideas. Then she cursed her boss. Ex-boss. Fuck him right off. Launch him into the sun. Then she cursed North Star, or Normal, or whatever his stupid name was. For good measure, she cursed whoever had invented yoga. She paused. No, it probably wasn’t that guy’s intention to have his spirituality co-opted by ‘wellness influencers’. She modified it to curse whoever had invented yoga retreats, because that had the ring of marketing about it.

After ten minutes of guitar solos and new wave synths, with a sprinkling of punk and romance goth, she was feeling much better. The weed had settled into a gentle haze around her, and she was drumming the steering wheel when it happened.

A cow ran out in front of the car.

She slammed on her brakes, her heart pounding.

But no… it didn’t run. The motion was too smooth. It was… floating? It bobbed over the cracked road and floated serenely over the barbed wire on the other side, then dipped out of sight.

Soda took off her sunglasses and rubbed her face vigorously. Was this spiked weed? She took a few big mouthfuls of water, splashed her face, and put her sunglasses back on. There was no sign of any cows, floating or otherwise. Everything looked normal. She pulled out again and cautiously started back up the road. What a trip! No more roadies! She had to focus. Finally, after what felt like too long, the road approached the highway. She sighed with relief.

About two hundred metres from the merge, there was an abandoned-looking bus shelter, with a rusty old bus stop sign sagging by the side of the road.

Standing by the sign was a woman.

Soda blinked rapidly, but the woman was real. She was hard to miss: very tall and wearing a turquoise suit with dusty white boots. The closer Soda got, the wilder she became. She had masses of messy blonde hair, enormous round sunglasses, and an emerald green leather backpack slung over one shoulder. She waved as Soda approached.

Absolutely no part of Soda wanted to pick up any kind of hitchhiker, let alone one that strange. She put her foot down to speed up.

“Not today, Satan."

The engine sputtered.

“No! Noooooooooo!"

The Corolla gave a few emphysemic chugs, then let out a long wheeze and died, smoke pouring from the bonnet. The car came to a gentle halt just past the bus stop. Soda’s eyes shot to the rearview, and she saw that the woman was jogging lightly towards the car, her backpack bouncing. Soda’s heart skipped a beat, but what could she do? Her car had betrayed her.

“Good morning, do you need a hand with that?”

The stranger peered in with a genial smile through the open window, her voice pleasantly deep and curiously accented. British, maybe? Soda stared, mouth slightly open.

“Um? Sure?”

“Great, pop the bonnet.”

Soda fumbled with the lever and the woman hitched up the bonnet and stood back, theatrically swatting away the smoke. Soda wondered if she should get out of the car. She undid her seatbelt reluctantly, and was slowly reaching for the door handle when she heard an ‘Aha!’ And the car started up again. Soda couldn’t hide her surprise as the stranger flashed a wolfish grin and approached the passenger door. She did up her seatbelt and thought about driving off abruptly, but nothing bad had happened, had it? She hesitated. She’d seen enough horror movies set in the outback… It was fine, the door was locked. They could just talk through the window, right?

The stranger tugged the door confidently and it swung open. Soda froze. That door had definitely been locked. But now here she was, climbing into the car and tossing her backpack into the back seat.

Soda was utterly paralysed by this brazen behaviour.

“Uh, um?” She tried.

The stranger slid her sunglasses up and gave Soda a long, considering look. Her face was angular and pale, and it was hard to guess her age. Forty? She had silver rings on every finger. Her crisp white shirt was undone to expose the briefest suggestion of a tattoo on her breastbone. Chunky silver chains hung from her neck, adorned with strange talismans. She was simply overwhelming.

“Thanks kid! You’re a bit late, I was worried you’d forgotten about me."

“Oh… sorry?”

“You are Frank Jones’s kid, right? I didn’t just get into some random girl’s car, did I?”

She laughed.

Soda thought she might have brain damage. Because she was sure she didn’t just hear her say her father’s name.

“I - shit, look. Frank’s dead, lady. Sorry. He died six months ago.”

It was all she could think of to say.

“Oh, did he?” She looked troubled. “But he had something of mine, and I was supposed to come get it. What happened to his house?”

Soda opened her mouth to say ‘this is making me uncomfortable’ but what came out instead was:

“I live in the house now.”

Why the fuck did I just say that? If the stranger noticed Soda’s discomfort, she didn’t act like it.

“Great! Then you can just take me there, I’ll get my stuff, and I’ll be on my way.”

Soda tried again to disagree, and found that she couldn’t. Instead, she said:

“Sure. I’m Soda. What’s your name?”

“You can call me Rowan.”

Soda pulled out onto the road. She had no idea why she was doing any of this. Her chest thrummed with anxiety.

“Hey, is there phone reception yet?”

The woman looked at her for a long time, as though she had to think about the question.

“I don’t have a phone currently,” she finally said.

Soda picked up her own phone from the cupholder, willing it to find a sliver of life. The stranger looked at it with intense interest, but didn’t say anything else.

“How far out do you reckon we are?”

Music crackled out of the stereo.

“No idea,” said Rowan cheerfully. “Hey turn this up, this guitar sounds great!” She fiddled with the dials.

Soda snuck another glance at her passenger and assessed what she was wearing. The suit was tailored and expensive-looking in rich turquoise. The heat didn’t seem to bother her. She had one long arm propped on the edge of the open window. She kept taking long, deep breaths. She didn’t seem to be immediately murderous, and curiosity was outgrowing fear inside Soda.

“Got anything to eat or drink?”

Soda gestured to the glovebox, and pulled a water bottle from where it had been stuffed into the door. Inside the glovebox was some beef jerky, a melty bar of chocolate, and some salt and vinegar chips. Rowan pulled out the jerky, then spotted the joints.

“Ohhhh, groovy! You mind if I spark up?”

She bit into the jerky with relish.

“Fuck it, why not."

Rowan lit it, took a few long drags, then coughed.

“Damn! Why is this so dry?”

“I nicked it from an abandoned yoga retreat. I think it’s a bit funky. I saw some weird shit earlier.”

“What did you see?”

“I thought I saw a floating cow! Can you believe that?”

“Yes, I can,” said Rowan. She sounded serious, but not too worried. She puffed meditatively.

“Did you see anything else?”

“No! I definitely didn’t see a floating cow either!"

“Sure. Here, you want to hit this?”

“No. Yes. Fuck. Yes go on.”

Soda took a few shaky puffs and exhaled them in hard, nervous bursts.

“So, uhhhh… did you work with my dad?”

She almost didn’t want to ask, because she was well in the habit of not asking questions about her father’s work. But she had to know.

“Sort of,” Rowan said vaguely, sounding exactly like Frank. “Do you know what your father did for a living?”

“Honestly, the little I did know made me not want to know any more. Just that he was an art dealer or whatever. Cash jobs, often travelling. That’s all I know.”

She had her suspicions, but she wasn’t likely to voice them now.

“Ah, well. Sensible, probably. In which case, all I’ll say is that your dad was good at helping people buy and sell things. And sometimes, I would have something to buy and I would go see him for help… procuring it.”

What was that accent? British but not quite. Like the kids at her school who’d learned English overseas. There tension prickling in the air despite the lightness of the conversation. She made Soda feel like a rabbit waiting to be eaten.

“Ah. Cool. Sure. That’s… cool…”

She took another puff, and the blue sky outside rippled in the heat haze as they rolled down swooping hills of empty countryside. It was very relaxing scenery, and the music was settling her nerves, and she calmed down. Time leaked away.