Roadkill

It sat in a furry heap; a smear of something stuck to the hot pavement with a white stripe traveling across its twisted gray body. Flies buzzed in its eyes and in the gaping hole where its lower half should have been. The insects made my teeth vibrate with their constant noise. The raccoon—although calling it such was a bit of an exaggeration—had gone out in one spectacularly violent fashion. Probably happened sometime last night. I can picture it. This quiet little back road, silent in the early morning, moon still high in the sky. A skittering critter in the soon-to-be wrong place. A growling engine. Headlights. Bam.

 Now it’s a smear. A gray smear with a white strip going down the twisted middle covered in flies. I wonder if the driver saw it. Did they swerve or did they speed up to squash the little guy? I know a few folks who’d do that. Maybe the driver was up too late, asleep at the wheel when the two parties crossed paths just a bit too hard. I bet whoever it was that caved in this raccoon isn’t even thinking about it. I bet they’re either back home, enjoying their Saturday watching TV with a hand in a bag of chips. I can guarantee they aren’t staring over their dash wondering about the life and story of dead vermin.

Yet here I am. Parked on the side of the road with a fucked-up tire at the mercy of my roadside assistance. And she won’t even pick up her phone.  Guess the story doesn’t matter much. End result is still the same—a gray smear with a white stripe going down the twisted middle. Why couldn’t I have broken down somewhere else? Somewhere without a dead raccoon. Maybe last week before everything went to shit?

Did this little guy know I was staring at its flattened carcass? I’ve got front row seats to the fly fiesta, and it’s horrible. I wonder if she’d find it funny. The fact that after last night I’m stuck on the side of the road with a lump of rotting meat. I remember finding a little trash bandit back at our old place. She wanted to keep feeding the thing, calling it adorable. Didn’t even care that I had to clean up the mess. Don’t think she’d find this sight very adorable. And I don’t think the raccoon would find it very funny.

God, what am I saying? It’s just a dead raccoon. It walked out here, got hit by a car, and died. Its life over in one painful second. There isn’t much else to think about. Wonderful. But why did it have to smell so bad? The heat isn’t making it any better either. I’ll be washing this stench out of my interior for weeks, and even then, I doubt I’ll ever get this odor out of here. If I had only left an hour later, maybe I would have broken down somewhere else. Maybe if she picked up her phone this morning, I wouldn’t be driving out here in the first place. But nope. Now I’ll always have a hint of dead animal in my seats. As if I needed another reminder of today.

If only the driver could have seen what they caused. They should be ashamed of themselves. I bet they’d lose their lunch at the sight of that twisted pile of fur. It would serve them right too. No one should be driving at that hour anyway. The critter didn’t deserve this. Hell, I don’t deserve this.

Yet here we both are. A smear covered in flies and bugs, and a shmuck with a popped tire. Aren’t we just some roadkill?

What a jackass. I swear some folks seem to enjoy running over animals. As if leaving them to die, bleeding on burning pavement makes them feel powerful. It’s pathetic. There’s nothing powerful about that twisted heap over there. I bet it was just going about its day without a care in the world when—bam! Dead. Gone. A bloody twisted pile on the roadside.

Now someone has to clean up this mess. No other animal will eat this thing. It’s got no place left in the world. Can’t even rot into the dirt. Nope, at some point someone with a big shovel will peel it off the cement and toss it into the truck. They’ll drive away, and no one will remember the twisted pile of fur with a stripe going down the middle. Maybe the stain will last a few more weeks, but that’ll be gone too after a few rainstorms. And I’ll be gone long before all that happens.

Maybe I should call her again. I have to stop looking at this twisted pile of fur. It’s just roadkill.

The End

“Take all the time you need. We’ll be right through that door when you’re ready.”

The voice had said this over an hour ago. Or had it been days? I can’t tell. Time doesn’t seem to work the same way here. I guess that’s because there is no time anymore, but that’s difficult to think about. All of this is difficult to think about. I sat on an ordinary chair and stared at an ordinary wooden door. I say ordinary, but this was all just an image my mind made up to make sense of everything. To be honest, it didn’t even feel like I was sitting. And the stabilizing image my mind conjured was a beige waiting room of a doctor’s office with a single door. How trite.

I know what’s behind that door. That very ordinary door that my brain thinks would be comforting to stare at instead of an endless, colorless void. It’s The End. Of course, it is. How else would I imagine it? I’ve never been one for creativity. At least, that’s what I think. It’s difficult to recall anything that happened beyond this room. It’s as if all my memories are underwater. All I know for sure is that I’m me. And somehow, I know that beyond that door, I will no longer be me. I also know that my mind has done a really bad job at imagining a place where I’d feel comfortable.

“Have you decided?” The voice came again, speaking as if inside my mind. “It’s okay. You don’t need to rush this. It’s hard letting it all go. Take your time.”

Why did it keep trying to reassure me? I don’t want to be okay with this. I don’t want to be okay with The End.

“It’s not The End, you know? And no, not the beginning either. It’s more of a continuation. An expansion of awareness, if you will. You and I? We’re the same. Did you know that?”

I didn’t and I hated it.

“Calm down. Okay, I’ll check in later once you had some more time to think.”

“Wait.” My voice didn’t come from my mouth but somewhere else I couldn’t place. “How long?”

“Well, how long was I gone last time?”

“I—I don’t know. You tell me.”

The voice laughed. “That’s right. Time. You’re going to be glad to be rid of that. Trust me. Now please, just relax. I’ll be back at some point.”

I could have sworn I heard footsteps as the voice left me, but it was just my mind trying to cope with existing inside a shapeless, formless void. So, I sat (or floated?) alone in a beige waiting room. I noticed a poster on the wall. One that wasn’t there before—or if it was, I hadn’t noticed. It hung beside the door, a black border with the image of a setting sun with bold orange words saying, “Relax. Breathe. You’re in control.”

An inspirational poster? Really? That’s what my mind decided would comfort me. Sitting in purgatory, because that’s where I assume I am at this point, not knowing how the hell I died talking with God or an angel or a demon, or Satan, and my mind throws that up on the wall. It doesn’t even mean anything.

“I think the poster adds to the room.”

“What?”

“I said I’d be back.”

“You just left.”

“Did I?”

“Yes.”

“Oh,” it laughed again. “I really can’t get the hang of this time thing. I’m sorry. It’s not something I have to deal with much.”

“Are you God?”

“Oh heavens no.”

“So, this isn’t The End?”

“Nope, not The End. I thought I explained this already? I apologize. I might be thinking about a time that hasn’t happened to you yet. Okay, well, no matter. We’re the same. You and I and everything else that has ever existed—it’s all the same. Your mind has been a bit constrained during your life. Until your accident, that is.”

“My accident?”

“It’s irrelevant. Sorry, I understand this is difficult.”

“So, it isn’t The End behind that door?”

“I’ll tell you now, it isn’t your doctor. Nice room by the way. I like the door. Very thematic.”

“What will happen when I remember?”

“Like I said. An expansion of your awareness. You will exist as a part of everything. It can be a shocking thing until you’re ready for it. That’s why you had your life. Think of it as preparation before rejoining, well, everything. The you that you are now won’t disappear, as I’m sure you’re worried about. You will never go away. Nothing ever goes away around here, not even this cute little room. You can hold onto this for as long as you’d like. After, you will just be a smaller part of a bigger you that you have yet to experience.” The voice stopped talking, and the silence continued for a moment. “Would you like to be left alone? We can check in again later.”

“You referred to yourself as “we” again.”

“Weren’t you listening?”

“It’s a lot to take in.”

“Don’t overthink it. I’ll be back before you know it.”

I sat and tried to think of anything else besides the ordinary wooden door and the voice that called itself “we.” What did it mean to have my awareness “expanded?” Would it be painful? I wasn’t so sure if I liked the sound of being a smaller part of something.

I looked from the wall to stupid poster. “Relax. Breathe. You’re in control.”

Piss off.

What even was this? The voice said I will still exist, but it also said that I’d be everything. If I’m everything, how can I be me? Will I like it? Will I be able to like it? I mean, this voice doesn’t even know what time is. How will I be able to remember myself in all of that? What if it already started? I can’t remember much before I showed up here. Before I die—

“Car crash.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Don’t worry it wasn’t your fault. Well, it kind of was. But let’s not worry about that.”

I sat for a moment, a question burning on the surface of my non-expanded awareness.

I looked at the drop tiled ceiling that I could have sworn wasn’t there a moment ago. “Who was I?”

“Well, that doesn’t really matter at all now does it?”

“That isn’t helping.”

“Sorry. I’m not trying to be insensitive. But I promise you it will only make it harder to walk through that door. Granted, you’ve got all the non-time you need. I don’t mind. I’m just trying to make this as easy as possible for you.”

“You’re doing a crap job at it.”

“I apologize about that.”

The room fell into a deep silence. Well, I guess it had been like this plenty of times before, but I didn’t realize how quiet it was until then. There was no sound. And I mean, at all. I couldn’t even hear myself breathe. Now that I think about it, room or no room, I had no sense of well…anything. I guess that was to be expected inside of an endless, shapeless void.

Maybe this was hell.

“Again, not related to any religion.”

“Right, sorry. It’s just hard to believe.”

“It’ll be a lot easier to understand once you go through the door. You know, you could imagine something else if that would be easier? Maybe jump into a pool? Oh, or climb up on a chariot. Now wouldn’t that be something?”

“I’m not going to do that.”

“Suite yourself. We’ve seen it all before. Maybe you’ll change your mind later. Just Relax. Breathe. You’re in control.”

“Oh, shut up.”

“What? I think it’s a very nice poster. You put it there yourself.”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“Well, I like it.”

“You mean, “we” like it?”

“Of course.”

“How can everything even like something?”

“Don’t you like things?”

I thought for a moment, trying my best to imagine something from before. “I think so. I mean, of course I do.”

“And if you can like things, why can’t we? And like I’ve said, you, me, we, are—”

“Everything. I got it.” These conversations were going around in circles.

“Would you like to be left alone again?”

“Please.”

I stayed there for a long while. Again, I have no idea how long, and neither did the voice, I assumed. I had so many questions about everything. About me, about the voice, about this place. But I knew answers wouldn’t help. I’d just continue around and around and around talking about weird, vague ideas that can’t quite be explained because my mind is too small or some crap. The worst part was that all the supposedly satisfying answers waited for me, feet away behind a perfectly cliché door into oblivion. Or not oblivion? It still didn’t make sense.

After another long while of questioning my questions, I appeared before the door. I didn’t stand, or move, or anything. I just appeared before it without realizing I had decided this. I didn’t come to any conclusions or make up my mind. I just appeared right in front of that ordinary door.

The voice didn’t say anything. It didn’t need to. I knew it was watching, or whatever equivalent an all-existing entity did. No part of me was ready for this. If this was the light at the end of the tunnel, then my brown doctor door was one piss poor excuse of a light. And I had no urge to open it. But if I didn’t, that meant spending more time, or whatever time was, here, listening to the voice’s constant half-assed explanations. At the very least, this would be something different. If moving meant to continue whatever it was that the voice was talking about, so be it.

“Are you going to open it?”

“I was about to. You kind of just ruined the moment.”

“Oh. Oops, sorry. Go on ahead.”

I tried to regain my focus, and before I realized it, the door swung open. I didn’t push it. I didn’t turn the nob. It just popped open, and well…there it was.

“Finally.”

Columbus

“He found Mars?” Vaya asked, the spittle flying from the gap in her front tooth. “How’d he find mars on a boat?”

Heff let his weight sink into his chair. “The New World wasn’t Mars. At the time, it was America. He also wasn’t the first one. Many people hate him.”

“Why do they hate him?” Vaya tilted her head parallel with the floor, hanging half off her chair.

“He wasn’t a very nice man. He was mean to the people who lived in America.”

“What planet is America again?” Vaya had stopped reading from her textbook, now perplexed by the eraser on her pencil.

Heff’s chair let out a groan almost as loud as he did. “America isn’t a planet. It was once a place on Earth. Back in the time of Columbus, there was only one planet. Well, no, there was only one livable planet.” His voice was getting sore from repeating the lesson.

Vaya nodded but still wasn’t looking. “Have you been to planet America?” She stuck a finger in her mouth and played with the space in her teeth. “Is it hot or cold? Do they have gravity parks? I want to go to a gravity park like the one you and mommy took me.”

Heff stared at his daughter. Phobos’ light shone through the window, casting a red glow off the crimson field. Their reflections shimmered on the glass, as blurry as Vaya’s knowledge about ancient history. 

“When is your test again?” 

“In in three days.” She hopped to the stone floor and began following the cat. “Sheriff was from Earth, right?” She reached out to pet Sheriff’s pet gray fur. Heff could hear his purrs vibrate under the sound of their oxygen blowers.

“You’re lucky your mom isn’t home tonight. How about you go into your pajamas. If you’re fast enough, we can watch the meteors together.”

“Did Columbus watch meteors?” Vaya asked as she thumped across the kitchen to her room down the hall.

“I’m sure he did, sweetie. Everyone watches meteors.”

Thank You For Tuning In

Thank you for tuning in! We were waiting for you to show up! Come on, sit down and let’s get angry together. I understand why you hate them. You’ve got every reason to be upset. They’re the ones stealing your future. Those over there in red. Those over there in blue. They all think they know everything, don’t they? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered. Just keep watching and watching and watching. Don’t get off that couch. And definitely don’t go outside. It’s just way too hot! Stay here and we’ll fill you in on every reason that you’re right and they’re wrong. We’re in this together, you and us. We’ll get through to the other guys at some point. It’s important that we do. God knows we won’t let things be.

Wait, stop. Don’t look out the window. Please. There isn’t anything to see out there anyway! It’s just a little smoke and a little bit of rain, and is that hail? Oh, I’m sure it hails in July every few years. Just get back on that couch, kick up that AC, and listen to everything we have to say. We know what’s wrong with the world, and it starts with those guys on the other side of the street. Wait! I said don’t look! The trick is to let us handle it for you. Trust us, you’re going to love how we handle things. You literally have to do nothing. How much better could that be?

Wait you’re seriously worried about the snow now? The world has been here a lot longer than you have. It’s going to be fine. The ice age is normal. So are those fires down the street. What isn’t normal is your neighbor. You should hear the things they’re saying about you. Oh? That noise? It’s just an air raid siren. You really shouldn’t worry. Your neighbors are just trying to get you outside. Don’t fall for it. They think they’re always right, don’t they?

Mountain Top

I’m climbing this mountain to reach the top. I climb up narrow paths of rocks and dirt. Up and up, one foot after the other. I climb up so I can look down. Look down and scream. Sweating, and tired, I scream at the valley. My echo screams back.


For a lingering moment, my voice ricochets across the landscape. It returns just enough times to remind myself that no one is listening. On top of this mountain, I listen as my words meld into the cutting wind and my sentences dash across pine trees and rivers. I yell to be heard, but the moment doesn’t last. Up here, I am answered by myself. Always by myself.


My voice may turn the heads of those below, but few care about the source or the reason. My voice is a momentary pop in a world of horrible indifference, skidding out on some stranger’s driveway miles away. My energy is spent. I try again, laughing, screaming, and crying. I breathe deep and bay into the world like a lost wolf.


There are only so many times my voice can echo. On hands and knees, I beg the winds that silence me. With strained vocal cords, I shout. To stop means to return to silence. To return to a world that marches to a rhythm of dead voices. On this mountain, for a lingering moment, I am heard. Not by those below, or the birds above, but by myself.


And then I begin my descent.

A Walk to the Store

Alex hurried beneath billboards that watched him with and fading smiles. He kept his head forward and walked fast. At one A.M. on a Tuesday night, he had few people to worry about, and besides for those who had spent too long at the local pub, the streets were empty. Even still, Alex made sure to keep his distance, crossing the road and tightening his coat whenever someone came his way.


With his head low, Alex turned onto Walden Street. Three blocks down, the 7-Eleven sat alone. Its glowing sign burned against the winter night. The sight made the weapon in his pocket seem a thousand times heavier—a 9mm Glock he’d picked up from his cousin that morning. His hand clutched the grip, warm and sweating. A couple walked by, arm in arm, faces red from drink and the cold, staring past him with glassy eyes. They had no way of knowing why he was out so late, but Alex turned from them anyway.


His rapid breath puffed white clouds, and his heart drummed in his ears. Each step crunched in the slush—against the winter silence, it seemed as loud as a gunshot. After moments too quick, he stood at the 7-Eleven entrance, hands jammed in his pockets. He read the twenty-four-hour sign in the front window. Yellow light bled over the near-empty parking lot, reflecting in the frosted mirrors of a Honda civic. He glimpsed his reflection. Wrapped in his black coat, face half-covered by his winter mask, he looked no more suspicious than anyone else.


Alex traced his finger over the warm trigger of his weapon before gripping it tight. The register waited through the front, next to the soda fridge. He held his breath, checked his surroundings, and stepped through the automatic doors.

Field Trip

“I knew it was a landslide.” Charlotte sat on her knees, arms folded and head tilted up with pride. “I knew the whole time.”

The museum attendant turned from the diorama to Charlotte, who sat at the front of the crowd of twenty children. She spoke with the balanced tone of a professional. “Yes, but at the time, the villagers didn’t understand what that was. They thought it was their gods coming to punish them.”

“That’s stupid. They’re stupid.”

At the back, I clenched my fists in my pockets as Charlotte’s comment brought a burst of laughter from the other children and the disapproving gaze of the chaperones. Yup—that’s my daughter.

“Uneducated is the word. They had a lot to learn about their homeland.” The attendant segued into her next point with the skill of someone used to these types of interruptions. “It took many years to rebuild.”

Charlotte, however, was not one to let her point go unnoticed. “Why wouldn’t they leave?”

“Charlotte.” My jaw clenched as I hissed.

The attendant brushed a hair from her face and feigned a smile. “Back then, the people of the reserve didn’t have anywhere to—”

“They should have left. I would have left.”

Several of the other children groaned. Miss Preston, Charloett’s third-grade teacher, glared at me, and I felt as if was the one who’d be staying after school. I mouthed, “sorry,” but that only deepened the frowns.

Clasping her hands together the attended began walking toward the exit with the children in tow. “Why don’t we move on to the next exhibit. We have elephants over there.”

Of course, Charlotte took the lead, blonde pig tales bouncing with her prideful steps. “I love elephants.”

I trailed behind with my head low. This was going to be a long field trip.

Finding the Story

I’ve returned to this page a thousand times. Every time I start fresh. Some days I manage to find a flow, like a mariner catching the trade winds or an explorer charting Amazonian tributaries. Most days, however, I am met with a wall where I chisel each letter as if carving the face of a monolith. On the days my words are forced, the empty page arrests my sentences like a concrete dam. On occasion, that damn will burst. When that happens, the page floods with currents of run-on sentences stirred with the debris of mixed metaphors that eddy confidently with far-fetched symbolism.


Then some days all goes as planned. At least, in that exact moment. Each word precedes the other like a steady march, one after the other just as ordained. I order letters to form words to form sentences to form paragraphs and then realize I have just rambled for five pages neglecting commas the whole way. Those days leave me with a unique disappointment. It’s as if I were working inside a dark workshop only to turn on the lights and discover I’ve nailed the wrong nails and cut the wrong boards.


So, I start over, hoping to find the end this time. That promised finality I know waits hidden behind the last punctuation of some undiscovered sentence. Like the explorer charting tributaries, I chart unwritten paragraphs for that final period, abusing my delete key the entire way.
I hope not to appear nihilistic. I am not disheartened by this chase, far from it. Like a runner who stretches before a jog, or a fisherman untangling his line, stories need time to take form—a lot of time. But for now, I think I’ll start over.


No matter; this wasn’t quite right anyway.

Let’s Meet at 2:00

I’ve been staring at my phone. Staring at the same message for almost twelve hours. She sent it to me earlier, hours after our lunch date. She told me she was going to her parents, but hours later, just as I was about to break into a pint of ice cream, my phone buzzed with a message:

“Can we meet around 2:00?”

I responded of course, and she gave me a location. “Betties’ Diner.” I asked if everything was alright, but her responses were short and clipped. Not one single heart emoji. That was hours ago, and she had not messaged me since.

I had thought our date went well. She laughed a lot and we talked about our favorite music and TV shows. I was convinced I’d get a second date. But now I don’t know what to think. What could have gone wrong? No one sends a message like that without reason. We aren’t two business partners arranging a deal.

“Can we meet around 2:00?”

Now it’s midnight and I’m sitting rigid in a laminate corner booth at Bettie’s Diner. I hold out my phone staring at her last message, jumping at the sound of the opening door. A cup of coffee, untouched, sits to my left, and the waitress once more asks me if I needed anything.

I sat for two hours before the door burst open. It was her. She whizzed in like a human locomotive, rushing before the bar with her coat falling off her shoulders. She slammed down in my seat out of breath and brushed the hair from her face.

“Hope I’m not late.” She laughed, leaned over the table, almost knocking over my coffee, and kissed me. “Is it 2:00 already?”

The Shark

They hung the great shark by its tailfin. Onlookers gasped at the size of its bloody mouth, and fishermen appraised its fresh meat. Barbed hooks were removed from the beast’s gills, as money exchanged unwashed hands. When fishermen returned to their boats, great machines milled the corpse into feed for pigs, its fins cut for soup. The smell of death and sea stained the town square until the rain. The predator filled the nose of the poor and the bellies of the rich, who scooped their soup from decorated bowls. Maybe there is a lesson hidden within the life of the shark, or maybe there’s nothing to discuss. It’s just one less animal in an ocean of many.