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Karma
Donna R. Mercer
1
“Wooah.
We're half way there.
Woah-oh.
Living on a prayer.
Take my hand, and we'll make it, I swear.
Woah-oh.
Living on a prayer,” Karma’s off-key singing echoed around her car, Betty Lou.
She didn’t care.
There was no one else in her car to hear her spontaneous tribute to Bon Jovi. It was a loss that the world might never recover from.
The late afternoon summer sunshine was quickly fading away and soon the warmth of the day would give way to the chill of the cool mountain night. It didn’t matter what state she was in; she had learned through her travels that night time in the mountains were cold. She would need to find somewhere to stop for the night soon. Her meandering trip from California had taught her several things. The main one: only crazy people drove on unfamiliar mountain roads after dark and Karma was a lot of things, but crazy wasn’t one of them.
She had papers to prove it. Her mother had her tested by her New Age guru mentor. The only thing that Amelia Martin’s mentor was able to determine was that Karma was blessed by the mysterious forces of the universe.
Her parents thought her journey of self-discovery was a waste of time. At least her father did, her mother thought she should inhale some incense and take a spiritual journey through her mind, becoming one with the universe. She tried doing things their way. Go to college, start a career, settling down with a boyfriend, sipping gingerroot tea. All those things did was just highlight how miserable that lifestyle made her.
Now it was her turn to live her life the way she wanted to. She was on a journey of self-discovery to determine her place in the cosmos. Okay, maybe just her place here on planet Earth. Hell, she would settle for her place in the United States. She just knew that it wasn’t in San Diego, California where her parents lived.
Technically speaking, even now she had no idea where she was. All she knew was that she was on some two-lane highway in the mountains of Colorado. Hell, she wasn’t even sure what set of mountains she was driving through. The one thing that Colorado had plenty of, was mountains.
Big ones.
Little ones.
Ones she was lost in, but mountains.
All she did know was that she had been on this two-lane highway through several mountain towns. If the pattern held, she assumed that she was going to be coming up on another one soon. That was a good thing. She’d hate to be stuck trying to drive this winding road in the middle of the night.
She was on a voyage of self-discovery not a journey to drive off the side of a mountain.
Karma’s singing abruptly stopped when a loud clicking sound came from her engine.
“Oh, that doesn’t sound good at all.” Karma could see one of those turnarounds up ahead that popped up every few miles on these winding roads, more importantly, it was free. She slowly pulled her Oldsmobile Aurora to the side easing into the space to avoid oncoming traffic. The summer light was fading fast. She tightened her grip on the steering wheel while mumbling, “Easy…easy…easy,” under her breath as she coasted to a stop.
She got out of her car and went to lift the hood staring at the engine. Her eyes crossed as she stared at the wires. This happened every time she looked at a car engine. She remembered that ex she had. What was his name?
Ronnie?
Bobby?
Ricky?
Mike? That was it. His name was Mike. She started singing under her breath. “Cool it now
You got to cool it now
