Speeding east on southern California's Route 62, Sam couldn't lose the peculiar, detached feeling that overcame him in the restaurant. He'd shake his head in brief jerks to dispel the fog from behind his eyes knowing he shouldn't ride a motorcycle when not perfectly sharp. Especially with Ann behind him in his passenger's seat. Wouldn't want anything to happen to her.

Ann blurted into the microphone communicator attached to her helmet. "Sam. What's the matter? You keep jerking your head. You okay?"

They had ridden east for several hours on that desolate road past Joshua Tree on their way to the Colorado River for a summer weekend of boating with some friends. "Boating. Boating, yeah," Sam had said.

Passing cars trailing boats. Boats in the middle of the friggin' desert," he'd say. "A weird sight."

The blustery desert wind was at their backs but the heat was everywhere. So hot they didn't want to stop. But they did, for a bite of dinner at a dusty sun bleached, wind beaten diner at a small junction in a no-name berg along the route.

No cars were parked in the crusty parking area out front. The only indication that the place was open was the tailgate of an old pickup truck protruding from behind the building and a worn, faded OPEN sign in the window.

As they rode up to the place, Ann commented, "Well, at least it doesn't advertise Eats, or Grub, or anything equally unappetizing."

They entered the diner bringing with them some of the parking lot grit on their boots. They removed their leather jackets. Sam found a toothpick in his leather vest pocket and shoved it in his mouth.

"Looks like a fifties diner," Ann whispered.

They sat at a booth near a small ceiling fan. "No air conditioning," they said together, and laughed. Ann looked around, noticing things, as she typically did. "Not nosy, just interested", she always said. She leaned towards Sam and declared, "We're alone."

"I noticed that right away" He smirked, shifting the toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other.

Sam was always comfortable wherever he was, unconcerned about details. Ann used to rag on him about that sometimes, accusing him of being disinterested and uncaring.

"Just none of my business," he'd counter, then lean into her, give her his elbow, and grin.

"Do you like the yellow color scheme?" she said. A playful smile crept to the corners of her mouth as she watched for Sam's reaction.

"I'm a little too hungry to care about the decor." Sam looked for a menu and checked out the surroundings. "The place reminds me of eggs. I think I'll have an omelet."

"Only, if there's a cook on duty," Ann said. "I don't see anyone here."

With that, an obese, gray bearded man in a soiled chef's hat, a faded black Harley Davidson T-shirt and a soiled wrinkled apron, stretched tight around his tremendous girth, emerged from the rear of the diner.

"Wow, he's a charmer," she whispered.

The man rocked from side to side as he approached the booth in order to bring each leg forward as if it was an effort to bring his body forward with each step. An uncomfortable looking chore to accommodate his bulk. Reaching the booth, he put two curled, stained menus on the table and mumbled, "No specials today. Just what's on the menu." His gruff comment revealed a silver upper front tooth and brown stained lower teeth.

A pungent cigar smell on the grubby apron connected with the discolored teeth.

"Thanks. We'll just be a minute," Sam said. "We'd like some water, please." The chef, returning to the kitchen, grunted acknowledgment.

"What do you feel like, Hon?" Sam said.

"A burger. That should be easy for him."

"I'm gonna have an omelet. How could an omelet get screwed up?"

The chef returned with two tall glasses of iced water. Sam ordered for the both of them.

"What kind of bike you guys riding?" the chef said.

"An eighty-seven, twelve-hundred Gold Wing," Sam said.

The chef said nothing, just showed his teeth in a weak attempt at a response.

"Like mushrooms for the omelet? I've got some fresh mushrooms in today that would go just great in your omelet."

Sam fingered his toothpick and said, "Okay."

After dinner, cruising east at a comfortable ninety miles per hour, Sam sensed a fading connection with the surroundings. He shook his head to clear his senses.

Ann spoke into her intercom again, this time with emphasis. "Sam, are you okay? What's the matter? You keep shaking your head?"

"Donno. Seems I've got the he-be-gee-bees," he replied into his microphone. "Do you feel okay?"

"Fine."

Sam shivered, trying to hide that from Ann. Geeze, what the hell is happening to me? he mumbled. God, where are we? This place looks like a movie set."

The drone of the bike's 1200 cubes faded.

I feel like I'm floating, glued to my saddle. I'm gonna be sick. My head feels like it's ten feet above my shoulders. I can't feel my helmet.

His distant hand released pressure on the throttle that seemed way off to the right. The large touring bike finally began to slow. Sam's sense of time slowed with the RPMs. He couldn't feel Ann's arms around his waist.

He looked from side to side. This place looks like an atom bomb test site, he thought. "Nothing but empty, dilapidated shacks on either side of the road. Deserted."

He saw the images contort like a fun house mirror. He couldn't hear anything any more. His Wing was silent.

The backlight from the late afternoon sun cast long, strung-out shadows onto the sand between the abandoned shacks. It must be the heat, he thought. Got to stop. Got to get control. Fifth gear to forth. It seemed like minutes before he could drop down to third gear, some endless period until he could stop and get the kickstand down. It seemed like forever to reach the key and cut the ignition. He felt himself fading.

Ann released her hold from around his waist as he slid down from the machine falling onto the road mumbling about not being able to see through the smoke.

"What smoke? Sam, what's the matter?" Ann un-strapped their helmets. The heat of the desert wind pressed down on them like an invisible iron cloud.

"Sam, what's the matter? Do you hurt anywhere?" Her voice was loud and raspy. "Talk to me, Sam, damn it. You're scaring me."

Sam rolled on the grit by the edge of the road, his head moving at random from side to side, eyes staring through Ann as if watching a motion picture. "Ann," he muttered, "What did I have for dinner?"

He blurted, "This place is evil."

Ann pushed her hair behind her ears, kneeled by Sam's limp body, loosened his leather jacket, reconstructed the dinner scene for him and the events leading up to it. She recounted everything.

"Uneventful, then," Sam whispered, and began to shiver.

"Yes, our food arrived, we ate, gave a generous tip and left. And now you're hallucinating. You can't be dehydrated, we both drank plenty of water."

Sam made guttural noises and shifted his head as though watching a movie too close to the screen. He waved his hand in front of his face. "The smoke, the fog. I can't see. Ann, are you there?" Perspiration broke out all over his face.

He lay still, apparently staring at a few puffy clouds.

"Sam, can you hear me?"

"You're too far away, Hon. Speak up."

Kneeling beside him, Ann put her cheek to his and held him. She closed her eyes. "Geeze, what am I gonna do?" Ann said aloud. "Can't let him see me cry."

Time seemed suspended in the bleak wasteland as late afternoon shadows grew ever longer. Hot gusts blew tall dust devils in the distant sand between them and the mountains on the horizon.

Sam coughed.

"Are you okay? Feeling any better?"

Sam pushed himself up with his hands behind him, sat and blinked a few times. "Wow," he said, shaking his head. "The smoke cleared."

"What smoke? Can you get up?"

Sam struggled up on his elbows. "Oh damn, I'm still seeing things. There's a cloud of dust down the road."

Ann turned to look. "You're okay. There's a car coming. Help is on the way."

"Cavalry to the rescue, huh? I used to love desert westerns."

They both watched an old pickup truck grow towards them, waving, disappearing then reappearing in the radiating heat from the road. Sam recognized it through the mirage as it grew nearer and stopped. A head appeared over an elbow framed in the open window. A silver tooth reflected the low summer sun as the grinning chef said, "Enjoy the trip? I gave you the last of my stash. The local Indians really know their mushrooms. See ya."

The pickup lurched forward, laid down a screeching track of rubber on the hot macadam spewing smoke and pebbles at them. Hilarity from the cab faded with the truck as it disappeared into the quivering dusty desert heat.

Sam and Ann looked at each other in disbelief. Both shook their heads.

"I'll take the front seat," Ann said. "If you're okay enough to travel."

"Let's do it. I'll enjoy seeing some real scenery for a while. And for sure, no more damned veggie omelets for me."