The Taxi

“There’s something uniquely suffocating about being driven straight toward uncertainty—with no brakes, no plan, and no one left to call.”

The rhythmic hum of the taxi’s engine filled the heavy silence between us, the old vehicle’s weary motor ticking with the weary persistence of something long past its prime but too stubborn to give out entirely. We’d cleared the airport precinct now, merging into the main veins of Adelaide’s late-afternoon traffic. The city unfolded ahead in slow, yawning increments—one red light at a time.

But it didn’t feel like Adelaide anymore.

What had once been a familiar route now felt curiously foreign, as though every building had subtly shifted, every streetlight re-angled just slightly off. The illusion of safety—of home—had fractured somewhere back at the terminal. Now it was all just surface. Gloss veneer stretched over a new, unnerving undercurrent of threat.

The driver, a man in his late fifties with skin like baked earth and eyes the precise shade of worn asphalt, stole another glance at me in the mirror. He didn’t speak for a moment—just observed, silent, like someone who’d seen enough strange things in the back seat of his cab to know better than to jump to conclusions.

“Bit of a rush back there at the airport, mate,” he said eventually, his tone pitched halfway between casual friendliness and careful prompting. It was the sort of tone Adelaide locals reserved for strangers who might be unstable, or worse—Melburnians.

"You running late for something particularly important, are you?"

"Not really," I lied, leaning heavily into the corner of the back seat, feigning interest in the passing scenery. The cracked vinyl groaned beneath me. "Just needed to get moving."

The words felt awkward and misshapen, like a half-swallowed pill caught in my throat. But I’d learned quickly that full disclosure wasn’t just dangerous—it was nearly impossible. What could I even say? I just fled an airport terminal while being chased by a woman who may or may not be part of some inter-dimensional enforcement agency because I hid her mysterious backpack in another reality.

So, instead, I let the silence hang there, hoping it might eventually settle.

The driver chuckled—deep, dry, and genuine in a way that filled the taxi like warm smoke. "That airport’s always an absolute bloody zoo. You’d think after all that money they poured into those renovations, someone might’ve invested in a bit of proper organisation. But nope—same circus. Different day."

His voice was smooth gravel, and I found myself wondering how many people like me had sat in this back seat before—quiet, evasive, too quick with their smiles and far too cagey with their details. How many frantic souls had this man driven out of proximity to one kind of danger and toward another?

I gave him a noncommittal nod, hoping that would be enough to derail further inquiry.

No such luck.

"Elizabeth train station, right?" he asked, adjusting his grip slightly on the steering wheel. The casual repetition of my destination rang too clearly in the air. "Bit out of the way, innit?"

My stomach tensed. There it was—that gently needling curiosity, laced with something sharper beneath the surface. Elizabeth wasn’t exactly a common request for a taxi fare straight from the airport. Too far. Too… pointed.

"Yeah, that’s right," I replied quickly, forcing a flat, neutral tone.

He pressed on, still playing the affable local. "Bit of a trek, that. Nearly an hour with this kind of traffic. You heading further up the line after that? Train to Gawler or somewhere past that?"

I tensed further. The question was light on the surface, but it landed with unexpected force. The way he phrased it—so casual, so ordinary—belied its deeper implication. Why Elizabeth? Why now?

"No," I replied, voice clipped. "Meeting someone."

That should have ended it, but his eyebrows rose subtly in the mirror.

"Could’ve arranged to meet ’em somewhere closer to the airport, yeah? Would’ve saved you a bit of coin—and time. Elizabeth’s not exactly a popular spot for a casual catch-up."

He didn’t say it rudely, but the remark hit with surgical accuracy. The line between simple observation and quiet interrogation blurred momentarily, and I was left floundering for a less obvious response.

"It wasn’t my idea," I muttered, the defensive edge in my voice cutting through more sharply than I intended. I winced inwardly at the crack in my carefully maintained composure. That was too much. I could feel it.

The driver didn’t respond immediately. Instead, he offered a shrug—the kind you only learn after years of hearing people lie to themselves in your back seat. Whatever he thought, he kept it to himself.

Gratefully, he let the conversation dissolve into the ambient hum of tyres on hot tarmac and the muted rattle of the taxi’s ageing suspension. Outside, the city began to change shape. Suburbia crept in like a quiet, familiar tide—tired brick houses with patchy lawns, faded signs advertising mechanics and corner takeaways, and wide, sun-bleached pavements lined with ghost gum shadows stretching long under the late afternoon sun.

We transitioned onto Main North Road, the familiar artery that sliced its way through the northern flank of Adelaide like a utilitarian spine. I watched the landmarks blur past with a strange mix of nostalgia and dread: the Royal Adelaide Golf Club's immaculately groomed greens standing in sharp contrast to the dry yellowed grass on neighbouring verges; rows of dealerships with plastic flags fluttering in the hot breeze; abandoned factories now covered in sun-blasted graffiti that somehow never changed.

These were roads I had travelled dozens of times. With Josh, mostly. Trips north for uni breaks, family barbecues at Carisbrooke Park, weekend hiking trips at Parra Wirra. But all of those memories now shimmered like mirages—flickering heat ghosts barely anchored to the present.

Because this wasn’t the same road anymore.

Not really.

Now it was a countdown. Every traffic light ticked us closer. Every bend in the road carried the oppressive weight of destination. And beyond that destination? Uncertainty. Possibly worse.

We passed a tired-looking bottle shop with faded VB signage, its windows darkened by posters so sun-warped they looked fossilised. A fast food outlet blinked its tired fluorescent signage above a collection of parked utes and lowered hatchbacks, their exhaust tips still warm from bored idling.

The road shimmered ahead, rippling under the sun’s punishing heat. Mirages danced across the bitumen like spectral illusions—wavy, insubstantial, and just believable enough to seem real at first glance.

I wiped a fresh sheen of sweat from my brow, the fabric of my sleeve already damp, and leaned back against the headrest. Not to relax. I couldn’t relax. But simply to pretend, even momentarily, that I was just another passenger headed somewhere forgettable.

To anyone watching from the outside, that’s all I was.

To everyone except her.

"Just visiting Adelaide, then?" the driver asked after a prolonged beat of silence, his voice light but edged with something faintly probing. "Or are you actually a local returning home?"

His eyes met mine again in the cracked rear-view mirror—dark, keen, and politely unreadable. It was a superficially friendly look, but there was a sharpness beneath the surface. Not malice. Just curiosity. The kind developed through decades of watching strangers from behind the wheel, silently parsing the micro-tells of posture, tone, hesitation. He was good at it, too. Far too good.

"Local," I answered reluctantly, watching as the outer sprawl of Salisbury slid past the window—low-slung retail outlets, weathered brick shopfronts, and the faded remains of old signage sun-bleached into near illegibility. Beyond them, pockets of suburbia gave way to light industrial parks, the kind of utilitarian structures that seemed suspended in a permanent state of slow decline. "Well, I used to be properly local, anyway. Haven’t been back to Adelaide in a while."

It wasn’t the answer I’d planned to give. But something about the question—the way he’d asked it, so gently, so simply—prised open a crack I hadn’t meant to reveal. The words slipped out before I could catch them. And just like that, the truth came nudging up from beneath the surface. When had this city stopped feeling like home?

"Ah," he said knowingly, his voice warm, "a born-and-bred Adelaide boy at heart." He gave a faint chuckle, the lines around his eyes deepening. "Not much changes in this city, you know. People say it’s small, like that’s a bad thing, but there’s comfort in it. Familiar streets, familiar sun. Feels good to come home again, doesn’t it?"

There was a rough sort of tenderness in his tone, almost paternal. It caught me off guard. I’d been expecting transactional politeness—maybe some idle gossip about traffic or the Crows. Not this. Not the vague kindness of a man speaking from long, hard-earned perspective. And for a fleeting moment, I felt irrationally guilty for all the deliberate evasion, the guarded glances, the silence.

I made a non-committal sound in response—neither agreement nor denial—and turned my attention fully to the road ahead. We passed one of those sprawling suburban retail complexes—massive car park, big-box stores, the usual array of shoppers making last-minute dashes for furniture, appliances, bargain whitegoods.

It stirred something in me—a memory, sudden and unexpected. Josh and I, years ago, arguing over bar stools and microwaves when he’d moved out of the family home. That had been his first real independence, and I’d teased him relentlessly about his objectively terrible taste in futons.

"You seem a bit… unusually distracted, if you don’t mind my saying," the driver said, pulling me abruptly back to the present. His voice was still gentle, still casual—but there was a steel thread of perceptiveness running through it.

I met his eyes again in the mirror, just briefly. There it was—that distinctively Adelaide bluntness, wrapped in concern and plain-speaking honesty. No confrontation. Just observation, laid out like a quiet challenge.

"Something rather like that," I said, shifting again in my seat, the cracked vinyl protesting beneath me. The air conditioning was doing its best, but the heat outside felt relentless, pressing in from every angle. I couldn’t tell if the sweat clinging to the back of my neck was from the temperature or the tension pulsing through every nerve.

"Well, I hope it all goes smooth for you," he said, his tone brightening. He swung us neatly into another lane, bypassing a semi with the ease of someone who’d spent half a lifetime weaving through traffic like an art form. "Not every day I get sent halfway to bloody Gawler, I’ll tell you that. Keeps me awake behind the wheel, though."

I nodded faintly, lips pulling into something that could almost be mistaken for a smile. It didn’t reach my eyes. My hands clenched around my phone, white-knuckled, as if some hidden message might miraculously materialise. But the screen remained blank. No messages. No missed calls. Still no word from Josh. Nothing but the slow, steady scroll of time.

We were deep into the north now. The edges of Salisbury had slipped by without ceremony—low industrial sheds, chain-link fences, the occasional lone service station crouched beneath a haze of sunburnt signage. Beyond that, the retail spine of Elizabeth began to emerge. Concrete. Car yards. Endless rows of low-slung shopping complexes. A place built for transactions, not reunions.

The traffic thickened as we rolled closer to the heart of it—predictably. Peak hour in summer. Blinking indicators. Frustrated gaps. The shimmering heat above the bonnet made everything feel vaguely unreal. My jaw tightened without thinking.

Then my phone vibrated.

The sudden motion jolted me upright. I snatched the device from my pocket, heart vaulting into my throat with wild, irrational hope. But the screen wasn’t lit with Josh’s name. Just a low-battery warning. I stared at it, disbelieving, willing it to change. It didn’t.

"Bloody brilliant," I muttered under my breath, stuffing it back into my pocket with more force than necessary.

The driver gave another knowing chuckle, eyes crinkling again. "Technology, eh? Always there—until you really need it. Then it vanishes faster than your wallet at the pokies."

I gave a tight laugh, humourless and mechanical. His words, meant kindly, cut a little too close. Technology, family, control over my own decisions—everything important seemed to be falling apart today, all at once.

Outside, we passed Ryans Road, then the vast, low bulk of the Elizabeth Shopping Centre, its car parks swarming with last-minute shoppers. The shadows were growing longer now, bleeding out across the bitumen like bruises. Every passing landmark felt like a step closer to something inevitable. Something I wasn’t remotely prepared for.

"We’re almost there now," the driver said, gently breaking the thick silence. "Elizabeth train station, just up ahead on the left."

My stomach twisted.

I nodded silently, throat too tight for words, one hand brushing the shape of my phone again in my pocket as if it might finally come to life. But still—nothing. No contact. No clue. Just that single line of text, hours ago now: Meet me at Elizabeth.

Why?

The station came into view ahead, stark and grey and deeply, unwelcomingly familiar. Brutalist concrete and steel, its structure squat and functional, like it had been built for utility and nothing else. It cast long, angular shadows under the harsh sun—shadows that seemed to stretch toward me as we approached.

"Thanks," I murmured quietly, though the word carried more than just gratitude. It carried fear, and anticipation, and the weight of the things I could never explain aloud.

The driver gave me one last look in the mirror, and in that moment, something passed between us. A flicker of paternal understanding, of unsaid questions. His weathered face softened slightly, a trace of compassion showing through the default indifference of someone who’d learned not to get too involved in other people’s stories.

"Well, mate," he said gently, "I hope your complicated afternoon gets a lot easier from here on out."

"Me too," I whispered, barely audible.

As the taxi rolled toward the kerb, and the station loomed closer, I felt the world narrow once more. No turning back now.

The taxi slowed with the kind of resigned grace that comes from countless repetitions of the same manoeuvre, the vehicle’s suspension gently dipping as we approached the outer edge of the Elizabeth Train Station carpark. Before us lay an expanse of bleached, sun-scoured asphalt, stretching out in all directions like some vast, dormant sea—cracked and cratered from years of neglect and merciless South Australian heat. The surface shimmered beneath the punishing late-afternoon sun, sending up fluid waves of distortion that danced like mirages, giving the surreal impression that the ground itself might liquefy and swallow me whole.

Beyond this shimmering no-man’s-land rose the station itself: a slab of brutalist indifference, its grim concrete silhouette sitting squat and unmoved beneath the oppressive sky. It was a relic from a time when architecture valued durability over beauty, designed not to inspire but to endure—a hard-edged solution to a logistical problem. Its lines were sharp, its corners unforgiving, its purpose worn plainly on its drab grey sleeve. Even from a distance, the metal roof seemed to radiate heat like a kiln, baking the air above it into a visible shimmer.

The light was vicious now—typical for this part of the world, this time of year. The kind of sunlight that bleaches colour from the sky and scours the earth with impersonal clarity. It turned every surface into a reflector: car windows, metal fences, the broad white shoulder of a tilted street sign. Everything flashed painfully in the corner of my vision, every glance an effort. The backs of my eyes throbbed with the cumulative strain, each blink dry and gritty, as though someone had replaced my tear ducts with fine Adelaide sand.

As the taxi came to a firm stop just shy of the nearest pedestrian access point, the driver cast one final glance at me over his shoulder. His eyes met mine in the rear-view mirror—less inquisitive now, more contemplative. There was no need to say anything. He understood, in some instinctive way, that whatever this was, it extended well beyond the bounds of his professional curiosity. His face, leathery from years beneath an indifferent sky, gave away nothing overt. But there was a certain softening in his gaze, a flicker of concern restrained behind the mask of practised detachment.

I’d already begun reaching for my wallet by the time he opened his mouth, anticipating the polite ritual of payment that would mark the end of our shared journey. He hesitated just long enough to suggest he might offer a closing remark—some parting platitude to bridge the awkwardness. But whatever he might have said died quietly on his lips as I handed over the fare with a mechanical, borderline brusque efficiency. My eyes never left the windscreen.

I scanned the carpark with narrow-eyed urgency, each parked vehicle subjected to a rapid-fire process of elimination. Blue sedan—not Josh’s. White hatchback—definitely not. A late-model 4WD with dark windows? No. My heartbeat, which had been tapering slowly back toward normality during the drive, now began its ascent again, each unrecognised vehicle dialling the tension tighter in my stomach. He wasn’t here. Or if he was, he wasn’t visible.

"Cheers, mate," the driver muttered, folding the notes without fanfare. His tone had lost that earlier warmth, replaced by something neutral, professional. Distant. I couldn’t blame him. I hadn’t exactly been a delightful conversationalist. The claustrophobic energy I carried with me was probably still lingering like static inside the vehicle.

I didn’t respond. Didn’t thank him. I just opened the door and stepped out, bracing instinctively as the full weight of the heat slammed into me like a wall. The taxi door clicked shut behind me with a sound that felt unnecessarily final—a punctuation mark on the end of something I hadn’t yet processed.

The afternoon air was thick, hanging heavily over the pavement with a dense, shimmering presence. It carried with it a pungent cocktail of odours: faint traces of stale petrol, the acidic tang of overheated metal, and that curiously specific smell of sunbaked train station concrete—a dry, mineral tang unique to rail platforms baked year after year under the merciless Australian sun.

I stood motionless for a moment, one hand gripping the strap of my backpack, my shoes subtly sinking into the softened bitumen with each shallow shift of weight. The heat radiated upward in waves, enveloping me in a suffocating embrace, as though the entire carpark was breathing heavily around me.

The taxi engine rumbled into motion behind me, tyres grinding slightly as the vehicle began to pull away. I resisted the urge to turn around. The sound faded by degrees—first from the ear, then from the air, then from the mind—leaving only silence, heat, and the impossible weight of everything I hadn’t yet faced.

But it did nothing—absolutely nothing—to ease the iron knot in my chest. If anything, as I stood there listening to that car recede, I felt it tighten.

The carpark sprawled before me like a sun-blasted wasteland—its faded, barely perceptible parking lines scarring the cracked surface in a lopsided grid, as if the very ground had forgotten the purpose of its own design. A sparse scatter of vehicles stood awkwardly amid the heat shimmer, each one coated in a thin film of dust, their dull metal husks radiating heat in slow, visible waves. They looked abandoned more than parked—ghosts of errands long since completed, or perhaps never begun. Their presence felt tenuous, apologetic, as though they too were intruders in a place that had no desire to welcome them.

The sunlight bounced ruthlessly from every exposed surface—windscreens, chrome accents, even the dull plastic of faded bumpers—creating momentary flashes that stabbed into my vision like migraine auras. I raised a hand instinctively to shield my eyes as I scanned across the carpark, squinting through the golden glare, searching for something familiar. Josh’s car. Josh himself. Anything.

Nothing.

A few scattered people milled lethargically about the peripheries of the station, their movements slowed to a dull crawl by the relentless furnace of the afternoon. They moved like figures from some slow-motion reel, the kind of oppressive heat-induced inertia that only locals truly understood. There was an art to moving just enough, and no more, under a South Australian sun. Any excess was wasteful. Dangerous.

The skeletal shadows of the surrounding eucalyptus trees stretched across the bitumen like dark, broken fingers—sharp and fractured, never quite reaching far enough to offer proper shelter. Their leaves, waxy and silver-green, hung utterly motionless in the breathless air, as if the very act of movement had been suspended by mutual agreement between heat and nature. Even the birds were silent, their usual cacophony replaced with a tense, expectant quiet that seemed to buzz in the stillness.

I scanned each car again—systematically, obsessively—trying to will Josh's familiar vehicle into existence. But it wasn't here. It hadn't been here a minute ago, and it still wasn't here now. My stomach coiled tighter.

I checked my watch. 3:36pm. Too early, perhaps. If he'd been in Burra around lunchtime, then even at his usual slightly illegal pace, he shouldn’t be here quite yet. But logic wasn't soothing the tension rising steadily up my throat. Logic didn’t explain the silence. The unanswered calls. The cryptic message with no follow-up.

A flicker of heat-tinged anger rose in my chest, sharp and irrational. What the bloody hell is taking him so long?

I shifted restlessly on the spot, the heat from the sun-scorched pavement radiating through the soles of my shoes until it felt like my feet were slowly melting into the asphalt. It was the kind of heat that seeped into your bones and clung to your skin like a second, sticky layer. I rocked forward onto the balls of my feet, gaze twitching toward the same handful of parked cars for the hundredth time, as if one might suddenly reveal itself to be Josh’s through sheer force of repetition.

Still nothing.

With mounting frustration, I yanked my mobile from my pocket again, checking the screen even though I already knew it would show the same thing. No new messages. No return calls. Just the final breadcrumb—the message sent hours earlier that had initiated this whole absurd detour. It remained there on the screen like a taunt. Like a dead end.

The sunlight reflected off the phone’s surface so aggressively that I could barely see it. The act of reading became a struggle, a squinting battle between glare and despair. It felt like the device was mocking me—this tool of communication now reduced to a glowing void. With a hiss of irritation, I shoved it back into my pocket.

I took a few steps toward the station proper, though I had no real intention of boarding a train. The façade of the building loomed ahead like a stubborn monolith, offering neither shade nor sanctuary. It was just a shape. A boundary. A marker. I scanned the area around the entrance, watching the trickle of commuters slowly making their way out toward the carpark. They looked like ants—dispersing, unconcerned, forgettable. A young man with headphones and a skateboard under one arm. A woman dragging a battered travel suitcase. An older couple arm in arm, walking like they had nowhere urgent to be. Strangers. None of them mattered. None of them was Josh.

The main road shimmered in the heat, each vehicle approaching from the south a tantalising prospect—momentarily hopeful, inevitably disappointing. No familiar number plate. The same stream of white utes and faded hatchbacks. The same blur of suburban monotony sliding past the fringes of the shopping centre. They might as well have been travelling in circles for all the difference they made.

Another wave of unease rippled through me, colder this time—less irritation, more dread. A creeping, slithering certainty that something about this entire sequence of events was fundamentally wrong. Not just inconvenient. Not just delayed. Wrong. Like a note held just off-key. Like a chair missing one leg. Like a door left slightly ajar that you know you closed.

The carpark, open and sprawling, began to feel less like a waiting space and more like a trap. There was no cover. No high ground. No exit that couldn’t be seen. I shifted again, wiping a line of sweat from my brow, the gesture automatic and unsatisfying. My skin felt tight, my limbs leaden, as if the very air were trying to keep me still.

I shouldn’t have come here.

Not like this.

Not without more information.

Not without a plan.

The tension in my chest twisted again, deeper now, dragging at my breath. I scanned once more, because what else was there to do? The same station. The same heat. The same cars.

Still no bloody sign of Josh.