| A dead body is a heavy thing. It's dull and fascinatingly solid. You'd expect it to be thin and fragile, the life having already left it, but it just lays there, crumpled in a heap that cannot, shouldnot be mimicked. I've always wondered about Dallas. I used to blame the people, but now I've come to realize, it's the city. It's the city with the disproportionate roads, with the crowded areas and the expansive spaces. It's a fast-paced paradox that breathes pollution and confidence, the massive land coming up to engulf its citizens. Not that they care. The city has trained them to function at a moment's notice. Here, it's move, move, move, move. I saw that these past few mornings, on my way to school. I have to make a left turn on to a major street, Preston, and there's no stop sign for me, but there is for the people coming west on Keller Springs. I always stop anyway, just in case the others aren't stopping, but when I do, they wave me angrily on. "Go," they yell, exasperated and angry. Go, he waved. I don't know how he did that. I don't know who that man was, why he was there, but he was there, and he was standing in the middle of the road (called midway) and I was driving, frightened, lost, confused, on the verge of another breakdown, and I slowed, because there were so many cars, my headlights highlighting so many people, but one of them, bent and broken, unmoving on the ground and I thought Ohmygod, he's dead. Go, the man motioned angry and chilled. A storm was coming. A fierce storm that made the lights on the DNT go out. There was a huge flash, and I thought, dumbly, for a moment, that the world had stopped, but it took me three seconds, maybe two, to realize the lightning had hit a line and the rain was heavy, heavy and there was hail and an impending toll and darkness and a missing brakelight and the screaming in my head wouldn't stop. I couldn't pay the toll obviously. I didn't have a dollarfuckingforty on me, in fact, I didn't have any cash and I didn't have that stupid GPS and I was scared and crying and screaming and brainfried witless, and I thought all of the DNT exits had started implementing the billing system anyways, so that $250 fine threat and the person in the effing SUV behind me made me run. I turned on a street. Mockingbird? There was an airport. Some stupid inconsequential airport that Sarah had pointed out once and I wandered back to Midway. I didn't want to go back. I knew that by then the ambulances had come to take the body away, the people would have gone, the police would have roped off the scene with caution tape, maybe, but I only knew Midway, Midway to Preston that guy had said, so I went and drove and drove and the traffic slowed. Thank God the rain had stopped by then and the lights were on on Midway. There was a motorcycle lying abandoned. Far less crumpled than the man who had probably been riding it, but it had lost it's reflectors. I kept on thinking of how I'd been driving all panicked and crying and hyperventilating earlier and how lucky, how fortunate I was to not have hurt anybody like that. How lucky I am that my mommy called and my voice cracked and my dad GoogleMapchatted me all the way back to this new home where I am lost and broken and struggling. Regina Spektor keeps on wailing in my head. She kept on wailing during the stupid effing calc quiz too and sometimes Sia will creep in, crying, I am small and needy. Be my friend, warm me up and breathe (me). |
