He glanced furtively to the left and right before slipping unnoticed through the door of the bathroom. Behind him, the forlorn lights swinging above the island of the ramshackle gas station cast eerie shadows over the pavement. Time marched on as it always had at the gas station.
Ages later, like some painfully slow magic trick, the door would open and a woman strolled out. She was tall and handsome with long graceful legs, and the big hair that was so popular at this end of the 1970s.
She walked purposefully across the gas station lot to the edge of the road and stuck out her thumb. Car after car passed, but nobody seemed interested in picking up the woman standing beneath the Texaco sign.
Eventually a beat up old Dodge creaked to a dusty halt on the side of the road.
“Hey babe.”
Her voice drifted across the lot, barely audible above the hissing rushing sounds of cars whizzing past on the highway. After a brief exchange, she slid into the passenger seat. The car spun its wheels on the gravel shoulder, eventually regaining traction and almost clipping a newer model VW before shooting off into traffic headed toward the big city.