The Hiss of Static and Dry Canola

The silence inside the car had become its own kind of noise. It had started somewhere east of Moose Jaw, a thick, cloying thing that filled the space between Tristan and Andy, leaving no room for the radio's crackle or the rush of wind. Now, with the engine dead and the hazard lights blinking a pathetic, rhythmic pulse, the silence was absolute. All Tristan could hear was his own breathing and the frantic beat of a grasshopper against the windscreen.

“Well,” Andy said, his voice straining for a lightness it couldn't find. “Could be worse.”

Tristan turned his head slowly, feeling the sweat trickle down his temple. “How, exactly, Andy? How could it possibly be worse? A plague of locusts? The actual apocalypse starting right here, on Highway 1?”

Andy sighed, running a hand through his damp hair. He wouldn't look at Tristan. He was staring out at the fields, at the hypnotic sway of a million yellow flowers. “We have water. A bit of food. And there’s a tow truck somewhere between here and forever. I called.”

“You got reception?” Tristan asked, the surprise sharpening his tone.

“Stood on the roof,” Andy said, a flicker of his old pride in his voice. “One bar. Faded in and out. But I think he got the location.”

Tristan didn't say thank you. He just grunted and leaned his head back against the greasy headrest. The car, a 1998 Civic the colour of faded denim, had been his idea. Practical, reliable, cheap on petrol. Andy had wanted an old van, something they could ‘kit out for adventures’. This breakdown felt like a vindication Tristan was too miserable to enjoy.

“This is just like the lures, you know,” Tristan said, the words slipping out before he could stop them. They tasted sour.

Andy’s posture stiffened. He finally turned from the window, his expression guarded. “Don't. Not now, man.”

“When, then? When we’re sixty and you’re still telling me about your next big idea that’s guaranteed to work this time? The ‘Urban Lure’ was a masterpiece of terrible judgment from start to finish. And this,” Tristan gestured vaguely at the dashboard, the dead engine, the endless road, “this feels familiar. All optimism, no damn follow-through.”

“It was a good idea,” Andy said, his voice low and defensive. “The market was there. We just had a few production hiccups.”

“A few hiccups? Terry, the glitter kept falling off. They were fishing lures that moulted. We had five thousand units of ‘Disco Trout’ shedding like a cheap Christmas decoration. That’s not a hiccup, that’s a fundamental design flaw you refused to see because you’d already paid for the logo.”

The memory was so clear: the boxes stacked in their shared apartment’s living room, the faint smell of industrial adhesive, and the sinking, nauseating feeling in Tristan’s stomach as he’d run his thumb over a lure and come away with a smear of silver glitter. Andy had called it ‘Active Dispersion Technology’. Tristan had called it fraud.

They got out of the car. The heat slammed into them, a dry, oppressive blanket. The asphalt shimmered, creating watery mirages in the distance. A lone grain elevator stood silhouetted against the sky, a concrete monolith in a sea of gold. It looked abandoned, its sides streaked with rust and neglect.

“I’m going to walk to that elevator,” Andy announced, pointing. “Might be a farmhouse behind it. Someone with a landline.”

“It’s kilometres away. You’ll get heatstroke.”

“Better than sitting here listening to you catalogue my failures.” Andy started walking along the gravel shoulder, his back ramrod straight.

Tristan watched him go, feeling a familiar mix of anger and something horribly like pity. Andy always had to be moving, doing something, even if it was pointless. The core of their friendship, Tristan realised, had been forged in that shared momentum. But somewhere along the line, Tristan had learned the value of standing still, of assessing a situation before charging in. Andy never had.

He popped the boot, the hydraulic hiss sounding unnaturally loud. He rummaged past a spare tyre and a box of service station maps to find their dwindling supply of bottled water. He grabbed two and slammed the boot shut. The sound echoed across the flat landscape.

He started walking after Andy, the gravel crunching under his trainers. The sun beat down on his neck. After a few hundred metres, he was already sweating through his t-shirt.

“Terry, wait up!” he yelled.

Andy stopped but didn't turn around.

Tristan caught up, breathing heavily, and held out a bottle. “You’re an idiot if you go without this.”

Andy took it. His hand brushed Tristan’s, and for a second, the tension was just the memory of a decade of friendship. Then it was gone.

They walked in silence for a while, the grain elevator not seeming to get any closer. The scale of the landscape was deceptive, alien to their city-bred senses.

“The idea was sound,” Andy said, speaking to the horizon. “Hand-painted, artisanal lures for city fishers who want a story behind their gear. The branding was spot on. People loved it.”

“They loved the idea of it,” Tristan corrected, his voice flat. “They did not love a product that fell apart in the water. We got crucified in the reviews. ‘More glitter on my hands than on the lure,’ one of them said.”

“That was the supplier! He swore the sealant was waterproof. How was I supposed to know he was lying?”

“You were supposed to test it!” Tristan’s voice rose, cracking in the dry air. “You were supposed to do the bare minimum of due diligence before we spent the last of my student loan on five thousand defective pieces of plastic! I asked you, Terry. I remember standing in the workshop, and I asked you, ‘Are you sure this sealant works?’ And you looked me right in the eye and said ‘One hundred percent.’”

Andy stopped walking. He screwed the cap on his water bottle and stared at the ground. “I believed him,” he said quietly. “I wanted it to work so badly, I just… I believed him.”

And that was it. That was the whole problem, condensed into a single, pathetic admission. Andy didn't operate on facts or evidence; he operated on belief. He could will himself into seeing a reality that wasn’t there, and he was charismatic enough to drag other people into it with him. For years, Tristan had been a willing passenger. The Urban Lure fiasco was just the first time he’d been forced to pay the fare.

The sun was starting to dip lower, painting the edges of the sky in shades of orange and pink. The heat was lessening, but a new anxiety was taking its place. The tow truck wasn't coming. They were two small figures in a vast, indifferent landscape, with only the ghost of a shared dream to keep them company.