"Well, there's lots of things along the roa-,"
I peeled my elbows off of the vinyl counter. I think someone is coming up. They are. Damn. I take out my earbuds.
"Find everything alright?" I chirp out.
It's instinct at this point. He mutters something, and I can't really hear it and I don't really care if he did or not. It's just some bullshit I regurgitate so my boss thinks I'm actually doing my job. A blur passes, and suddenly I'm handing him his bag and he's out the door. My elbows return to the counter. I sigh, and look at the clock. 8:34. I get off at 10, but it might as well be a decade from now.
It's 10. My car stalls. And stalls. And st-arts. It's raining really hard. Like, when I pull out of the parking lot, it's coming down so hard that I can barely see the lanes of the road in front of me. It's a good thing that I know where I'm driving, because I'm really shit at seeing already in the dark. The rain makes everything look shiny, and blindingly bright. Almost like if I went too fast, I'd start slipping and sliding like it was made of glass. This late at night, and in a quiet town like this, there wasn't much to do. I drove, and drove and drove.
If you take the west way out of town, the change from bright lights and civilization to the dark woods and creeks may shock you if you're not familiar with it. It's not 10 anymore. It hasn't been for a long time. It's not June, or July, or August, or September.
It was the dead of winter, and it was now very early in the morning. The moon had fog around it. I can't really read the clock on my radio, as the light that lit it up while the headlights were on went out. I could tell though, because the sky had transitioned from deep black to a dark blue. I drove around a railroad, and a few secluded cemeteries. I parked in the grass. Even though I was very familiar with how cold it could get during the winter, and especially at night, it always shocked me whenever I stepped out into it. It was far from inviting. The yellow, dead grass, and the barren trees just emphasized this sterility. The moon blared down a blue hue onto the gravestones, something that they had been used to for decades, centuries. The one thing I found never changed with the seasons is the stars. I laid down on the grass, not being able to tell if it was cold or if it was wet. Looking at the stars reminded me of how I would stare and drone at the popcorn ceiling the previous summer. Was it a popcorn ceiling? I can't remember now. That made a shiver go through my entire body. My eyes began to sting. Why couldn't I remember? Was it not important? Did it hurt too much? I tried to stop thinking about it. I could look at anything and tie it back. Like the creek that was now frozen over, but just a few months earlier, was beaming with dragonflies, frogs, and lumps of tadpoles. Or the ghost houses that surrounded the few inhabited ones, the ones I had trampled through, the ones whose rotted floorboards I had balanced on, the ones that I had shined my flashlight in. I focused on the raindrops as they fell on the gravestone in front of me. They fell onto the mossy marker, and then splattered onto the already soaked grass below. This was probably the only chance the gravestones had to be cleaned, otherwise they were unclean and untended to. They had been wholly and completely forgotten.
My mind flashed back to a scene. It's summer now. Or early fall. It was getting slightly cooler at nighttime, but not too much. Moths buzzed around very old streetlights and porch lamps. I was listening to this jazz artist. I can't even remember what one. If I thought about it enough, I could maybe narrow it down. Miles Davis? John Coltrane? Chet Baker? It all melded together. I was getting stung over and over again by mosquitos. There were scars on my legs still, years later, from those same mosquito bites. Even if I forget the details, the essence of this will still be imprinted on my body for as long as I live. Why do I scar so easily? We were there. In the room with the maybe-popcorn ceiling. I was leaving. Not the house, not right then. I was leaving town in 8 months. We would probably never see each other again. Now we definitely will not. A tingling went through my entire body. I always planned on going. Leaving, never coming back. The person I loved was coming with me. My parents were staying. I never considered that someone would crumble into my lap, a sobbing, heaving mess. No matter what I did, no matter how distant or how close I became, I was a force of hurt.
I'm in my car again. It's 4:49 in the morning now. "The Scientist" by Coldplay is playing through my car radio. I noticed that it was at full volume, so I turned it down a bit. I always played dramatic music in times like this. It added a gravitas. It made it a little less real. A little more bearable.
July now. No, August. The sun is beating and beating and beating. I think I'm sweating vodka and old Calvin Klein perfume. I'm on a walk. The skies are overcast, but the sun is able to peek through and bother me, and me specifically. I'm listening to music, but it's not calm. It's abrasive and it's sad. I'm not, though. I'm doing the best I've ever had. 40 dollars in my bank account, a 12 pack under my bed, and around 20 new albums I've bought. I sit down, stand up, and the Earth pulls me back down again. The air feels like it's sticking to every part of my body, and I faint.
We're walking down the street now. It's still August, and I'm still drunk. I'm wearing these cute dress shoes that make it a Herculean task to move, let alone walk multiple city blocks. We're speaking awkwardly. I really want to ask about his dad. I never ended up asking him about his dad, and I sure as hell can't now. I'm asking about school instead. I don't very much know what to say to anything. He's pitiful, and I feel bad for him. I think he sees me the same way. We go back, our stomachs hurt. Mine still does.
September. Guitar Hero. Can't remember what song it is. Yeah. Much like seeing in the dark, I'm also pretty shit at playing real guitar, let alone pretend guitar. He wins. We leave. I use the arcade ticket card as an ice scraper for my windshield now. It's dirty and broken. Things became stilted. It's like whenever we entered a room together, the air went thin. We didn't go out a lot anymore, being confined to the house, and I would go home in the dead of night, like a cow going back and forth to slaughter.