Something from the corner of my eye caused me to swerve on the

darkened road—a blur of gray with dim spikes for a spine and skin to my right, or so my mind conjured up. Shifting uncomfortably and squirming, I continued to drive until I couldn’t, slamming the brakes as the traffic signal’s green light flickered once; then turned red. I exhaled, looking around, slightly perturbed. Nothing: no cars, no creatures. All was safe, all alright. 

Alright. Okay.  Alright. 

Driving on and on and on until the serpentine curve took me slightly to

the left, then to the right, then back again, the yellow signs with arrows glowing brighter until they faded from sight and were replaced by new, shinier ones, my mind flickered back to past times, to where I came from, and then back to where I was going. Almost there, I was almost there. 

Just a little while longer. 

Again, after peering out of the windows to see the obscure landscapes

with no moonlight, no stars, and no burning, bright sun that I was used to. At times, not so much anymore, I still longed for them along this stretch of familiar road. The nothing hills I once saw were now only shapes against a canvas of that absence of light. Then, another traffic light, and I slammed on the brakes. 

Exhale. You’re alright. All is alright. Almost there. 

Quivering while I waited for the light to turn back on, I curled the stained

pigtail of my mental hospital band, now worn and months old, around my finger. It was wrapped limply around my gear shift. My Nissan Rogue’s interior lights focused on the fading sandpaper tag that held my name, my date of birth, some code, and some barcode that stretched across it, which likely couldn’t be scanned anymore to recognize me. And while I was doing this, I realized that from above me, there was no light on at all, that no reflection of red, green, or yellow from uniform pixels was in my glass. A lady in the car next to me, some silver one to my right, appeared vibrantly with a long face and ratty hair, and she looked to her right and then left. I went to apply ChapStick, peppermint, but stopped with the solid oil grazing my lips when she worded from behind her thin-pane driver-side glass, not to me but some unknown presence, expression frightened, likely a lover on the phone, not to herself, “The power’s out.” Slowly, without warning, no yellow light flickering behind her eyes, she turned to me, pale face with no smile, and worded widely with her dropped jaw that not THE power, but MY power was out. Her neck was bent, the bone and muscles protruding, and I watched, trembling and clearing my throat, shifting uncomfortably again. Simply, she stared at me, made no further movements. I almost mouthed “Hello,” but her glossy gaze led me to say nothing. In an instant, without warning and without looking for other cars, she snapped her neck forward and sped away, her tires screeching against the stretch of seemingly interminable road. I bit a chunk out of the ChapStick and, without chewing or swallowing, spit it in an arching projectile at my bumpy dash, and I threw the stick over my right shoulder to the black leather seats in the back. With more pressure on my brain than on my gas pedal, I rolled past the useless traffic signal, slowly but surely increasing the speed at which I was going. 

Am I almost there?  

Speeding along, the desire to suddenly fly through the windshield

fluttered in my heart and veins. My brows furrowed under the thick lenses of my glasses, and my throat palpitated. The road faded away as hazy and chopped-up images flickered through my mind, projecting themselves on the road and obscuring my vision. 

Idiot in a coffin-shaped room, lying curled on his side and as a poorly

developed fetus seventeen years later grasping for something, khakis he became known for, and a brown turtleneck that got a few compliments, initials Sharpied on its white tag over the letters that spelled cotton (so it wouldn’t get stolen or misplaced, he’d imagine). “Help Me!” (Screaming at—) carved with force by fingernail into the floor by someone who was worse now than when they came in, I would imagine. Not padded like in the movies and paintings, the soft floor and soft walls gave way to the pushing of fingers and limbs. Everything gray, silent but friendly, (dark circle in the ceiling holding some shifting camera, a silent savior’s eye), silent but throwing screams back at the louder ones; the idiot’s humming back at him. The slanted light that shone through the window illuminated the idiot at a downward angle, dead skin cells and dust drifting in some falling rectangle. The tired bird on the outside dove with the forceful wind that blew and blew the all-green leaves of the single tree. The bird no longer in sight, the bird finally dead and gone. Leaves stick on and on and never learn to leave. 

I yelped “Fuck!” as once again, I almost sped through another pointless

traffic light, eyes wide and, yes, heart skipping a beat or maybe two. 

Any ladies or psychos to tell me about my purpose? What about you,

analyst woman with gleaming plastic pearl headbands and shoulder pads on jean jackets, those large teeth and long features? Oh, tell me: where am I now? Where did all my energy go? 

No ladies this time. Just cars with seemingly no passengers, confused cars

with no aim and no, from what I could tell, plans or purpose. People—sorry, CARS—came and went while, suddenly I realized, I’m in my hometown. But it was different then; everything was dark, and I had forgotten how to drive like I was instructed. Back a mile or so ago, I passed the gas station I frequented, passed the Barbeque Barn, on the outside of town from the long highway. Now, I was in a turn lane while planning to go straight. 

Purgatory. Fuck, am I—am I dead? 

To my right, a car eventually flicked its headlights, inviting me to push

forward. 

So, I did. 

No. Not this time. Not yet. 

Above me, my tiny car freshener—a candle with a fake image of a

tropical paradise, moon pure and unobstructed in the night sky, a hammock with a single palm tree and a perfect place to drown, past the white sand of the beach, in scented darkness—was affected by physics, swirling in circles as I drove in a slightly unsteady pattern. A zigzag, idiot. Thank you, yes, a zigzag. Past my old high school now, past my grandparents’ mansion, past the hospital—the hospital which was the only place with light left—the robotic voice of directions cutting itself off and not turning back on for the remainder of this story. There was a country club lit up, could probably afford power—sorry, energy, or so the title likely says—and probably had never been in darkness before. It’s all your—fucking idiot—it’s all your perspective. 

There was once, one day in the summer, when the two generations of

cicadas came together and burned the afternoon humid sky with their cries and mating calls. That day, I weedeated the dying, dehydrated grass near the pool, a body of water perfect for drowning in. (That’s a sin. You are stained, so let God curse you, Baptist idiot. Yes, I know. Let me get on with it, please.) In swarms they came. Later, an old man told me (he’s sick or dead now, must be) the hum of the gas motor attracted them, which is why I couldn’t get rid of them and why they clung to me—beady red eyes that, though not then, transformed to the blues and browns of my family’s, the heads replaced by those of my mother, father, aunts, uncles, sisters (you don’t have any sisters, remember? I forgot this wasn’t fiction, Preacher), and brothers, mating calls halting, screeching, with human laughter shrill as screams (What’s the point of this, oh Baptist? “Why do you always seem so down?” This they told you with a frown), their wings and insect bits shifting into naked baby flesh that pressed tightly to the threaded fibers of my long-sleeved summer shirt, howling as they kicked with their limply legs. 

Past the fast-food restaurants and speakeasies with ambrosian liquor that I

would taste many, many times if I continued down this pitch-black road, past the vape shops and concrete-paved roadways, past the yellow and white dashed lines, past every house I’ve ever been to, every lover whom I never knew, those happy families gathered around the winter fire, past my past. 

This time, like the last, to my right, a woman sped up, matching my

speed, and muttered and hissed largely to me, ‘Your power is still out, Baptist.’ My eyelids drooped, and my face felt numb. Her neck was bent, seemingly snapped, the old woman’s skin wrinkled and loose, the dry perm, that powdered wig of the slave-owning president, sliding back to expose a head full of little locks and tufts of baby’s hair. Don’t forget to tell them you watched in horror. Yes. My apologies. 

I watched in horror. She sped off. A cop car to my left around the bend

waited for someone to speed so they could make their quotas. They sat in the dark a little ways from Highway 45 (If you reach that age, I’ll make sure you don’t. Thank you, kindly, kind, so kind…) that stretched through my hometown, which I’ve never been out of—(Don’t worry. I’ll make sure you never will) upset you because they should be helping the people in darkness instead of pulling them over for quotas, right? Right. What a perfect solution that is, Baptist. (You must be pulling my leg.) 

My tight and sweaty grip released from the steering wheel, hovering in

mid-air slightly above it, as my vehicle turned around the corner of a tight strip, Parker Plaza, with restaurants of all cultures and places, and Heartland, or so the little check-up place was called, where I asked very kindly and sweetly and sadly and softly not to be admitted before school was out. ‘Can’t I wait till school is out? I have this big project for the newspaper I have to do. I have finals and tests, and I can’t miss any of my performances and practices because if I do—’ 

“That stuff comes second. What matters now is YOU. If any of them have

issues with it—which they won’t because I will talk to them, and if you don’t want some of them to know, they don’t have to because you’ll be excused anyway—they can argue with me.  Alright? It will just be for a couple of days. (But it wasn’t, my idiot, oh, it wasn’t.) Do you still remember the stale smell of that room and your blue jeans and white button-down and gray sweater and vintage 1970s dry-clean only orange jacket (your Holden Caulfield Hunting Hat), with fuzzy flannel inlay that you wore your first day back to show everyone that you were okay, that nothing had changed? Yes. How could I forget, my perfect, punctuating, palpitating, piquant, preaching preacher? 

I crawled in a daze to the passenger seat and let the cars speed past me.

Cars passed through cars, cars pushed through the left lane, cars passed me with no signals. They should have crashed into the ones coming straight from the left lane, but passed through each other like strong spirits not caring to teach me about my past or present or future and went unnoticed with tinted windows so I couldn’t see who was in the passenger seat and couldn’t see who was in the back seat and couldn’t see the bodies and memories they had hanging in and from their trunks. 

I remember those girls and boys who looked at me weirdly from the

waiting room, like a hospital area. I remember where I flew and floated in those hospital bed dreams with a roommate sleeping soundly to my left and cracks of streetlight piercing through the blades, sharp as razors, through to the pale wall and ceiling that danced and moved more than the leaves in the ‘Quiet Room,’ or so they called it. Some generator or cicada, or so I may have imagined, always buzzed and hummed somewhere from out there. In those dreams, my limbs and body soared up so softly and lightly that all the balloons wouldn’t be envious but proud that I could get over my (although they didn’t know I didn’t care about being free). I was past that, wanting to reach the burning sun to finally die, and finally be released of my burdens (they know, they know, shh, shh), my (what did you call them, preacher? Preach? Are you still there? Preacher, please! Please… I need you… I–Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Fool, fool, you goddamn jester of the court who knows nothing and has no wit or skill, you damn Baptist begging for the preacher and for a quiet God or cherub or lady to save you, fucking fool, quiet idiot, my little weeping one, my little idiot, little vulnerable idiot, my tiny, trapped concubine, perfect, precious, doll-like, silent little boy ready for a bigger and brighter tomorrow that will never come, keep quiet and let no one know, my sweet, savory, succulent, saccharine, perfect, quiet, kind, nicest one, funny one, never sad one, idiot, idiot, idiot, idiot, idiot, idiot, idiot, idiot, idiot, idiot, idiot, idiot, idiot, idiot. 

I was in the backseat of my white Nissan Rogue. The wheel steered itself.

The car drifted onward mechanically. No song played on the radio. Static might have been screaming. I heard nothing. Short sentences led to action. There was no fitting or happy ending. There was no story worth telling. There wasn’t a single tear shed during the making of this unhappy film. No animals were hurt in the making of this film. No idiots died. And the lights came back on, but it was still dark to the idiot. 

Shorter sentences. Don’t forget to give them some action, my sweet.  

And the light came on instantly. Everything returned to normal. To my

dismay, it was midday. Faces were seen in the driver’s seats. People cleaned their cars out while smiling widely at the Wooly Wash, which used to be the Dirt Buster, and where I first gained consciousness. This is where it all began, and I realized that sin and everything it suckled upon may have been, at least my four-year-old brain thought, my fault.  

I thought and thought and thought and thought and thought. 

     Short—Yes. 

And the lights stayed on—were always on—but it was still pitch

black—always black—to me. 

 

Ending.