WHERE THE ROAD LEADS

Once she had eaten she felt even more exhausted than she had before so she went to bed early; however she awoke after about six hours of hard sleep. She could see the on/off flashing of a neon sign that was coming from a nearby bar.  She got up and looked out of the window, Las Vegas wasn’t the only city that never shuts down; people were wandering around the street as if it were two-thirty in the afternoon instead of two-thirty in the morning.

From somewhere in the distance she could hear music, not happy music, soulful music—maybe ‘blues’.  She stood there taking in the scene and listening—she felt so alone.  She could almost see herself in a scene from some old movie—sitting upstairs over some dimly lit bar with the sound drifting up of some Louie Armstrong or Chris Batti ‘want-a-be’ playing a lonely trumpet; with the tune of My Funny Valentine lingering in the air, soulful and haunting.  Tears dampened her cheeks; the ache in her heart was enormous.  She realized she had no one to love and no one to love her; things definitely had to change.

Chapter Sixteen –fourth page:

Joan stood on the balcony and watched the sun peep over the far horizon.  The sky, painted with hues of pink and purple, was a truly beautiful sight.  She was glad she had awakened early; she would have hated to have missed this view.  Missing this would have been like missing the viewing of a great masterpiece –indeed this was a great masterpiece.  In a way she felt sorry for all of those who slept, and in doing so, missed out on the beauty that was there before her.

She stood there mesmerized in a way, and almost before she realized it the pink and purple had turned to a bright orange.  All too soon the day would begin, the sun would be high in the sky and this beautiful ‘painting’ would have disappeared—lost, and never having been seen except for a lucky few.  She felt extremely fortunate to be among the lucky few.