Spare Parts and Mending Hearts

Every component of this story save for the motorcycle bit was from an unusually vivid dream I had.

He was he, and she was she. Together, they were they.

What lay before them was a vast, sprawling, automotive graveyard. “This is where cars go when they die,” he said. She smiled that quirky half-smile of hers (or was it a smirk?) and said nothing. As far as they could see, there were piles upon piles upon even more piles of junk. Well, at least, “junk” in the most colloquial bastardization of the term. As old cliché goes, “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” The same cliché applies.

Cascading mountains of metal, plateaus of scrap, derelicts of ancient, rust-eaten iron and steel. His mind raced with thoughts, her chest swelled with anticipation. “Well, let’s get to it,” she said. With a nod, he started down the hill after her. The day was beautiful, and the day was theirs. Three-winged birds with chromatic plumage flew soundlessly above, juxtaposed with the clear, green sky. A few pink clouds here and there, but nothing too ominous. The rains had come and gone. The world had moved on since. The climb down was steep, but manageable; he lugged the worn, brown leather bag over his shoulder - she, carrying nothing but the tune on her lips and the glint in her eyes. A light breeze blew past them, carving out little niches in the mauve grass on which they tread. It felt nice; on this, they could both agree. The breeze slightly ruffled his nondescript, grey jumpsuit and blew past his old aviator goggles. She was clad similarly, her jumpsuit being a light blue with matching Chuck Taylors. He took a moment to look at her, to hear the tune on her lips and to feel the glint in her eye. He knew what lay ahead, and he was completely content. She caught him stealing a glance and quickly looked at her feet, trying not to grin. His grin, on the other hand, could not have been hid from a blind man.

When they finally reached the bottom, the only obstacle that stood in their way was a decrepit, wrought-iron fence, which looked as old (if not older) than the shrine to automotive death that lay beyond. He wrapped his gloved fingers around the fence and shook it, knocking loose eons and epochs of rust and soot from the poetically interlaced links. “Let me in! LET ME IN!” he shouted to no one in particular. This was going to be a good day. He could already tell.
“Fork over the bag, would you?” she asked. He let it fall from the shoulder from which it had been slung, evoking a dull thud and spreading dark orange dust outward in every direction. She produced a thin pair of hedge clippers and proceeded to snip the fencing at strategic, well thought-out points. To any observer, however, it would look as though she was working at random, taking a snip here, a snip there, without any semblance of direction. He, however, knew better. They had done this before. He stood back in admiration. He loved to watch her work. Within a matter of seconds, a five-by-five section of fence came cluttering to the earth, kicking up even more orange dust. They were thinly coated in the stuff. He made a gesture as if to say, “well done, well done indeed,” and she made a gesture as if to say, “t’weren’t nothing at all.”
“Atrez-vous,” he said.
“Merci.”

Now that they had entered the junkyard, they were overcome with a split second feeling of child-like, irrepressible excitement. Real “kid in a candy store” material.
“Where do you think we should start?” he asked. She shrugged, her shoulder-length brunette locks shifting ever so slightly as she did so.
“Any place is as good as any, I reckon.”
“Why don’t we ask Rodney, then?” he suggested. She nodded, and made a motion, as if to say, “well, get on with it!” Rodney was the name of the field mouse they had found some time ago. A curious, six-legged rodent, he had served as a silent yet faithful companion, making their duo a veritable trio. He unsnapped the rusted-over button on his right breast pocket and gently pulled out the mouse. Its dull brown eyes looked first at the giant in whose palm it rested, then shifted over to the smaller giant. Rodney liked the smaller giant the best.
“Here, you take him.” He plopped the rodent into her opened palms, squeaking only once as he did so. She looked fondly at the creature - the same fondness in her gaze that Rodney knew turned the larger giant’s heart into a cavalcade of hyperactive butterflies - and asked,
“So, Rodney, where’s a good place to start?” With that, she set Rodney down on the dusty junkyard ground, and watched as the creature excitedly scurried first to the left, then to the right, then disappeared behind what appeared to be a pile of Mercedes bumpers.
“Well, you heard the man,” she remarked.
“Mouse, actually.”
“Whatever.” They followed the mouse past the bumpers, and gasped simultaneously at what they saw.
“Is that-” he began.
“Corvettes.” Though slowly beaten by time and the elements themselves, what they saw was unmistakable - thirty or so Corvettes, rust-eaten and battered, sitting neatly in a little alcove by themselves; it was almost as if someone had arranged them in that manner. They could hardly keep themselves composed as they dug their tools out of the brown leather bag.

They knew precisely what they were after; they knew absolutely nothing about what they wanted. They dug into the goliath automotive derelict like kids in a veritable candy story, save for the fact that the candy in was catalytic converters and carburetors and the candy store was this hauntingly stark vehicular graveyard. He emerged from the cab of a ‘Vette with a gear shift in hand, grin cutting cracks through the soot and grime now pleasantly adhering to his visage. She tinkered around with some salvaged sparkplugs, studying them intimately before separating them into piles in the dusty ground at her feet.
“Find anything good?” he asked. She pointed toward a pile slightly to her left; several usable sparkplugs, a sparsely-used alternator, three dome-style headlights, and a shiny new muffler.
“You?”
He produced tiny, tiny parts from his pockets; fuses, wires, electrical components, the like. They head the six-legged rodent squeak somewhere in the distance. With a shared look, they left their loot, albeit apprehensively, to investigate. One never really knows who or what one is bound to run into in places like these. The world had moved on long, long, ago - but people, there’s a resilient race. Hard-headed, blunt individuals and groups drawn together by one common, shared goal; survival.

When the two came upon Rodney, they noted that he was hopping up and down excitedly in front of his newfound discovery. He dropped the wrench he was holding, letting forth an audible gasp. Her impossibly deep, brown eyes merely widened as she kept silent.
“Is that-” he began.
“Yup.” she finished.
Rodney’s most recent discovery; a Ducati, a top-of-the-line high performance motorcycle, known worldwide before the event as one of the fastest, most reliable bit of technology on two wheels.
“We’ve got to fix this up.”
“Really? A Ducati?”
“F**k yeah, a Ducati! Why the hell not?”
“Well, first of all…” What followed was a rather lengthy discussion regarding their choice of transportation. He, as per usual, found himself intellectually bested and conceded to compromise. Sure, he could fix it up: that is, if he were able to add a sidecar for their gear and spare parts. He agreed, again as per usual. She had her way with words; when words did not sway him, however, she did have her way with him. He wasn’t complaining. Who would?

A few hours passed. The three distant suns danced with one another as they did day after day, year after year, eon after bloody eon in the lime-green sky. Night would fall soon; they only had about an hour left of the multiple daylight. He was nearly finished with the bike - it didn’t look like anything special, but anyone who knew what they were looking at (and they did) would instantly see the genius in the design. Raw power, precision control, with a touch of finesse. With a final turn of the ratchet, he stood back and admired his work. He beamed. “But does it work?” she asked. He barked with laughter.
“Does it work?!” Two wires near the console were tapped together, and the machine instantly roared to life, sending out plumes of ancient smoke, sending Rodney scurrying for the nearest junk pile for refuge. His gleeful, borderline maniacal laughter could hardly be heard over the hum of the engine. She smiled at him, seeing him in his element; his true self, no façade, no touch of even the most benign bravado. It was genuine. He clapped a grease-covered hand on his shoulder, yelling over the glorious mechanical cacophony, “Let’s take it for a spin.” He mounted his beast, she in its sidecar, Rodney in her front pocket. They raced no one in particular around the junkyard, hanging hard lefts and hard rights, wind coursing freely through their hair, scattering birds and various wildlife in every single direction wherever they went. She looked back and saw the gritty, orange dust that was the earth beneath their wheels catch a ray or two of muted sunlight. It was like living poetry. She was happy because he was happy, and he was happy because she was content. A perpetual cycle of reciprocal good feelings grasped them throughout the remainder of their test run.

The suns were setting. They had stopped at a far edge of the junkyard, miles and miles from where they began their day. Before them, rolling hills of lavender grass with multi-coloured vegetation lay sprawled for as far as their eyes could behold; perhaps further. The setting suns, as they had for aeons, formed a triangle of brilliant, blue-white light.
“It’s beautiful,” she said.
“You are.”
She took his hand in hers, and they shared an embrace warmer than the gaseous giants which burned millions of miles away.

He was he, and she was she. Together, they were they.

All was well in the world.