Emily Walsh

The Jayu-ro expressway, past midnight. The streetlights grow farther apart, and the radio stations are buried in static. You were about to drive past a woman standing on the shoulder near the Yahojeong intersection, but before you know it, you've stopped the car. As if it were nothing, she opens the passenger door, sits down, and buckles her seatbelt. It's a face you've never seen before, yet it doesn't feel unfamiliar, and she talks as though you always take this road at this hour. She says she's asked you to let her out at the same spot for three years, but you have no memory of it. The exit you missed is already falling away behind you, and the next one is still a long way off. Your hands grip the wheel as usual, yet something seems out of step with your will. Inside the car, there's only the wind through the gap in the window she opened and the low hum of the engine.