My Writing. His Illustration.

He was head over heels. For a moment he thought to himself, “Have I lost control?” but quickly dismissed the idea, knowing from all of the movies and songs that “if it seems so right, and it feels so right, then it has to be right.” It’s gotta be right. He was able to see the night’s sky, stars for the first time in months.
Just a few hours earlier he’d left the valley behind, citing that he had a little extra cash, though his hands were deep in his pockets and held on to nothing. “Of course you can take my bike. Just don’t let anything happen to it,” Chris had said, scratching at the beard that wasn’t so much a beard as well-defined laziness. Daniel pulled at his hair and said, “Thanks, man, thanks a lot. Really,” his foot tapping, looking down at where the motorcycle’s tire touched the cement flooring of Chris’s parents’ garage. Daniel pulled on his hair in front of his face, silently cursed himself for his bad habit, and wobbled over to the bike. “I mean it, man, I won’t put a scratch on her. Don’t worry about it.”
Soft colors surrounded Daniel in every direction. The desert gets shortchanged in the western world’s constant stigmatizing. Sure, it’s hot, dry, sandy, and desolate. But most people won’t ever mention that the desert located west of the Rocky mountains is also one of the most picturesque and awe-inspiring landscapes in the entire beloved United States. While his flannel shirt, sleeves rolled to his elbows, beat against his chest by the passing 65 mile per hour wind, Daniel took note of the rolling hills, of the mountain ranges soaring up from nothingness in the distance – icecaps topping the peaks in staunch contrast to the cactus dotting Daniel’s current elevation. He flew by bushes every few minutes, tried to remember how lush and green they were in the daytime. With the sun setting behind him, the entire desert was painted in cozy shades of orange and quiet reds. At times, there were patches of pink that got caught on large rocks that stuck out in his vision like tiny hands poking out from the dirt and sand. He throttled the engine and saw every patch of pink waving him on, waving him goodbye, slapping themselves back and forth along the sides of his periphery.
He’d swung with his right hand. Not Daniel. At Daniel. The back of the man’s hand caught Daniel’s cheek from right to left. Daniel felt his cheek grow hot while the rest of his head hit the floor. There was an orange prescription bottle about five feet away, also on the floor, with its contents spilled, little yellow capsules. He focused on it as the toe of his father’s boot made contact with Daniel’s stomach.
A few minutes later his father was sobbing. “Daniel, please understand,” his breath caught like he was a child that had just been scolded, “I just needed help.”
“I’m going to Chris’s,” Daniel said, hand clutching his stomach, he walked away as slowly as possible, turning onto the sidewalk towards the nearer street corner.
Then here were stars. Here were stars and twilight in the still-unsettled American west, in the desert that divided the country so distinctly into two bastard halves. Here was warm sand and dirt and yellows and greens and mountains to create humility in oneself. Here were cacti to avoid that Native peoples had harnessed every ounce of nutrition from out of simple and beautiful necessity. There was the road cutting through it, spotted with rocks and bumps in the asphalt, but still a cool reminder of the prosperity and maturity of man in relation to his environment. Then there, behind him, was the much larger pothole than the rest. There, the sky again, Daniel liked it right here the best. The stars stretched out and made him feel completely alone, unlike the mountains and the roads and the desert colliding. This was solitary confinement at its purest. The motorcycle drifted into the corner of his eyes as his arms flailed about, free for the first time. Then, as quickly as he’d been elated by it all, his body reconnected with the pavement, in the same position as earlier that day. Daniel died instantly.