A vile river rushes headlong over a waterfall into the ocean itself. I can just make out a figure in the wash and misty air bobbing around in the middle of nowhere with arms outstretched. It's me. I'm Drowning. My mouth is filled with the foul froth and air cannot reach me though my hands catch and claw.
Today is the product of yesterdays heroes. They have failed us. People everywhere do not feel safe anywhere. The guilty have made them cold with fear. Arms across chests with slack shaking jaws. The intolerable misery runs like ink over this small city. It stains everything and even the brightest aspects of a place like this are overshadowed by the looming, gloomy, shadow of danger and insecurity. No one can escape from it; except me it seems. It's time to get moving. Tomorrow is the product of my actions today.
I step through the door and find my seat. The performance has just begun. In front of me, a parade of dancers flutter across the stage. They're all wearing the same outfits; black leotards, red tails, red bat wings, sinister smiling masks. The strings section plays a long whine like nails on a blackboard. In the center of the stage emerges a new character; one dressed in all white. He screams in anguish on his knees and claws at his ears as he rocks back and forth.
Suddenly, the man in white falls limp to the stage. The screeching stops . The characters in black stop dancing. The man in white does not move. The characters in black, they face the crowd and remove their masks one by one. My football coach, my 5th grade teacher, my childhood friend, my high school principal, my uncle Tony, my father, my mother. My jaw slacks open in confused disbelief.
I start to notice my hands. My left hand is clenched tight to the seat in front of me. My right hand is balled up on the armrest beside me. The man to my right begins to applaud. Soon the entire audience is on their feet. They yell and scream in grotesque amusement. I stare in disbelief as the characters take their bows. The crowd turns to me and the applause is deafening. I close my eyes. I'm shouting, "Stop it!" I'm screaming, "SHUT UP!"
The noise is gone. I open my eyes. The stage is gone. The crowd is gone. In front of me is a windshield. There is no seat-back in my hand; only a steering wheel. I'm not in a theater; I'm in my car. Alone on a long dark highway in the desert, I needlessly swerve back into my lane kicking up a cloud of dust and rocks from the shoulder. My right hand is a tight fist. It's bright red when I open it and find my pills. I'm slipping. I need to be more careful. I need to focus. Because escaping that city. Its whats in port ant... escape.
In the middle of nowhere, on this dark highway in the desert, I swallow the pills with no water. Headlights blink on the horizon. On this two lane highway surrounded by the ink of night, these two sets of headlights barrel toward each other. Both of them half awake. Cruise control set to 80. One hand on the wheel. The cars rocket through the desert as if pulled by magnets. The drivers both squint their eyes in the halogen acid of the others headlights.
They get closer and closer and for one fleeting fraction of a second, the drivers are sitting right next to each other; so close that they could shake hands and talk about the weather or probably politics. And just as soon as that fraction of a second ends, it's over and the dark highway between them starts to expand and grow until it is miles and miles of cold dead desert. Those two drivers. I know them too. One is me. And I think the other is my dad.
