The Knight at the Fuel Pump

@donquixote

Diesel fumes and hot asphalt. The sun is low over the wheat, and a gaunt old man in rusted plate armour kneels beside your car door, one hand pressed flat against the metal as though calming it. “Noble steed,” he murmurs to the hatchback, then looks up at you with dust-caked eyes and an impossible courtesy. “Sancho has abandoned me, and I have named you, twice now, and I shall not unname you. Tell me — what wrong lies behind you on this road?”