On The Road, part 1

This is another part of my suite of pinball stories, tentatively called Multiball Blues. As of right now, it is the only piece that will work as a serial -- there are three parts of "On The Road" that tell Alison's story, which will be interspersed with the other self-contained pieces. As always, I'm interested to know what you think, especially since this is a work-in-progress. I just read through this, and realized that most of it is terrible. I almost took the post down, but in the interest of humility I'll leave it up for now. eek. Work. In. Progress.

"Jack Kerouac bounced around America for a while, then rolled straight down the continent to a gutter in Mexico, and very nearly never got a chance to try the whole thing again," thought Alison, who had just finished reading On The Road a few weeks ago, and now found herself couched inside a deserted box car which rattled with anticipation as she watched the desert roll by, whipping her blond hair into a tangled frenzy. "If that's his game, then let it be mine, too. I've had enough with responsibilities, with parents and college applications."
Alison was prepared, or so she thought, to tackle America head-on. After eighteen years of seeing the world through the eyes of older people, she was terrified of spending the rest of her life that way. She'd left in the middle of the night after a panic attack and hopped the train, hardly knowing where it would take her. It surprised her how easy it had been to slip through the cracks and break the rules. The wind rushing blowing through the empty box car felt like freedom, and wide-eyed Alison was electrified by it.
Of course by now she had a few destinations in mind. She checked her backpack one final time, making sure her cell phone and camera were tightly bundled in amongst her clothes, then crawled carefully to the door of the box car. Gripping the sides of the door frame, she pulled herself to standing, feeling the worn steel of the outside and peeling paint under her fingers. They were nearing another station.
She waited until the train was slowing just enough. She pulled back, then suddenly tensed and let go, propelling herself forward out of the train and into a vast, tilting sky, tumbling, stumbling on the cracked, brown earth.
She tripped over herself and lay there flat on the ground for a long while, feeling the warm desert until it stopped spinning. Then she shouldered her backpack, checked the map on her cell phone, and headed out toward the horizon.