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If you find yourself in Utah, travelling through the desert, and you suddenly run out of fuel, you may come across a gas station.
You will see it in the distance, on the side of whatever highway or back road you’ve taken. If you get closer, you will see that it has no recognizable sign or logo, just a flat red roof with an old AC unit humming away on top.
If you pull up to the only gas pump, your vehicle puttering on its last legs, you will see that there is no self serve pay-at-the-pump option. There is just a gas pump, with selections of premium, diesel, or regular, and a bucket of window cleaner with a squeegee.
(Squeegee, you’d think, is a very funny word. You take little humour in this though, as you’re stranded in the desert.)
You shut off your car, or else it shuts off for you, burning through its last few drops of fuel. And if you wait in your car for an attendant to approach, eventually a man will leave the building, in an old orange jacket with navy blue sleeves, a friendly smile on his face and a white streak in his brown hair. He will speak to you, then, and despite being in the middle of the USA, his accent will be distinctly British.
“Will that be regular, diesel, or premium?”
If you tell him what you need and pop open your gas cap, he will happily fill up your car with whatever you choose. If you leave your car and approach the gas station, you will see the gas prices listed on the door in blue window marker. That explains the lack of a sign outside. Or makes up for the lack of a sign. Whichever.
If you push the door open, a bell will chime, ringing through the aisles, and you will step into a regular old convenience store.
If you observe the wares, however, you will find little oddities that you haven’t found in any other convenience store. There is a pail of little rocks, all shining geodes, bright green emeralds, nuggets of iron and (what you assume to be) fool’s gold mixed in with tiger’s eye and turquoise. “ Two bucks apiece!” says a little sign stuck to the side. Further down that same aisle are tiny burlap bags tied off with drawstring, each one labelled as “redstone”. If you reach out and nudge one on the shelf, ruby red dust spills out of a hole in the bag. There is a panel from which a selection of wooden bows hang (only twelve dollars each!) and next to it, a bucket of arrows (five bucks for a bundle of ten!), all lovingly handcrafted with flint arrowheads and tied together with twine into bundles.
If you wander toward the snacks in search of something to tide you over until you can acquire a meal, you may see a row of chips and chocolate bars, as is typical, but you will also see little bags of mixed berries, sealed up tight and kept in an open feezer. Alongside them are jars of jam, labelled with the fruits that went into them and the date each batch of jam was made.
The attendant will enter the store with a chime of the bell, and poke his head into the aisle you’re in.
“I see you’ve found the Fundy special,” he’ll say, pointing to the jam, if that is, in fact, what you’re currently observing.
If you pick up a jar, which is made of raspberry and cranberries as the label says, and ask him why it is called that, he will return your question with a smile that brings a touch of sadness to his brown eyes.
“My son used to love cranberries. I named it after him.”
You don’t stop to consider how odd the name Fundy is. Instead, you might give the lone gas station attendant a sympathetic smile.
(You assume his son has died. You wouldn’t be wrong, but you’re not right, either.)
You might pick up a jar of “the Fundy special” with the intention to purchase it. The attendant retreats to the counter to allow you to peruse his wares in peace.
You find upon what you assume to be complete coincidence, that this store sells nearly everything you need. You find a couple of towels, which you forgot to pack with you on your trip, on sale for six dollars apiece. You find a pair of earbuds, nine dollars, to replace your pair that broke a couple days ago. A keychain of a little blue lamb catches your eye; you’ve been needing one for your spare set of car keys.
As you shop, the attendant might sit on a stool behind the counter and kick his feet up to relax. And he might, if you’re lucky, bring out a guitar and begin to sing.
He sings quietly, but he sings nonetheless. He might play a song you don’t recognize, strumming out chords and pausing to write down lyrics in a book.
Or maybe, just maybe, he might play something that sounds a little bit like Hallelujah.
You cannot make out the words when he sings. But he plays that song like he’s been playing it his whole life.
If you approach the counter, your items gathered in your arms, he will set down his guitar and stand up to scan your purchases. And as he does so, he might comment on them.
“You know, my little brother loves these sunflower seeds,” he might say as he scans a bag of them. “We used to have contests to see who could spit the shells farther. I always won, but I let him win sometimes because otherwise he’d call me a bitch. Thing was, he could never bite through the shells without completely destroying them, which made them really hard to spit, so most of the time he’d lick the flavouring off the shells and then split them open with his nails so he could eat the seed.”
“Energy drink person, huh?” he says as he puts through a can of Monster. “My brother’s friend, Tubbo, used to drink these all the time just to stay awake. Yeah, it became a bit of a problem. We always had to confiscate them. I made a rule that we couldn’t have energy drinks, but he and his friend, Jack, made a petition against it. My brother signed it, so I had to get rid of that rule.”
When he reaches for the keychain, he might smile upon seeing the little blue lamb. And if you’re lucky, he’ll hold it up and say:
“Can I tell you about this sheep?”
You might have places to go, and you might tell him so and be on your way quick, but if you smile back and say yes, he might just tell you a story.
He’ll tell you how a ghost wandering the cold snowy tundra once found a blue sheep in the snow. He’ll tell you that the sheep was immortal, and had lived through wars, exiles, everything you could possibly imagine. And the sheep and the ghost were inseparable through it all.
You might ask what happened to the sheep. And the gas station attendant’s smile might falter, just a touch.
“The ghost eventually moved on,” he might say. “He didn’t want to, but he had to. It wasn’t his choice. And the sheep was left with the ghost’s living little brother. But what happened is that the man who the ghost belonged to came back, and it wasn’t his sheep, it was his ghost’s. And he wanted his ghost to have that, at least.”
He might lean forward a bit, elbows propped on the counter, immersed in his storytelling. Eager to hear more, you might lean in too and peer down at the keychain.
“The sheep missed his friend. He would cling to the man because he was the closest thing to the ghost there was. And what the man did, is he made a deal with a powerful god to make the sheep mortal. So, the man, in one last act of cruelty and kindness, killed the sheep. And the sheep reunited with the ghost in the afterlife, where they could both be friends for the rest of time.”
It’s a sad story, you might think, but bittersweet. Not a bad story, not a bad story at all.
What was the sheep’s name, you might ask. And the man might smile again as he snips the tag off it.
“His name was Friend. Because that’s what he was, the ghost’s very best friend.”
And what of the man, you might ask. Or his little brother?
He might shrug as he bags your things. “The man had to leave. He wasn’t well. Mentally, that is. He was bad for the people around him and wanted to get better. He did his best to atone for everything he’d done to hurt his family and friends. But when it came time to apologize to his little brother, he couldn’t do it. He was afraid he wouldn’t be forgiven.”
But was he, you might ask. Was he forgiven?
He gives you a bitter smile and a sharp nod. “Yeah, even though he didn’t deserve it. He had to leave his brother behind, which was probably the worst thing he’d ever done. He knew it would hurt his brother, but he did it anyway.”
But the man had to go, you might argue. If leaving was the best thing for him so he could better himself, wasn’t that better than trying to stick around and accidentally hurt the people around him in the process?
And this lone employee might shrug, or give you a smile, or heave a sigh; perhaps all three. “Yeah, maybe. But he was never able to forgive himself for it anyway.”
He’ll tell you your total for your purchases, bag up all of your stuff, and then he might turn to you and offer you a coffee. Or a hot chocolate, or a bottle of lemonade; whatever your favourite beverage may be. You might offer up money in exchange, and he will tell you that it’s on the house.
Whether you accept or decline, his reaction will be the same: he will smile, a warm, bright display, and wish you well on your trip.
And if you go out to your vehicle, you will see that the windshield is cleaner than it’s ever been, the gas cap firmly back in place, ready to drive.
If you hop back into your vehicle, you might dig through the bag and fish out the keychain of the blue lamb. And you might, perhaps, clip it to your current set of car keys.
If you toss your purchases into the backseat, rev your engine, and pull away from the gas station, you might look back at it in your rear view mirror as you drive away.
And you might find that there is nothing there but blank desert, as if the gas station in Utah had never been there at all.