Never Land
Gas sloshes through the nozzle, swallowed in greedy gulps by my truck's gas tank.
I'm throwing money down a hole. Waiting to hear the splash at the bottom.
Snap!
The nozzle's handle kicks against my fingers. The tank is full. The bleeding is over.
I tear the receipt from the jaws of the self-service machine. Glance at the damage.
I walk around the dented front of my truck, clamber into the driver's seat. Thinking of how many receipts the gas pump has printed in its lifetime. How many times it's documented in black and white America's greatest addiction.
I crumple up the receipt and toss it on the floorboard next to a sticky Red Bull can. I don't bother to fasten my seatbelt.
Back on the road.
The miles are slipping beneath my tires like sand from an hour glass.
I'm in a sea of cotton fields.
The cotton is green.
It's already summer.
It's already summer, and I'm going home.
Home.
Where the heart is.
Sure.
I knew what the next three months would be like.
Three months of convincing my mother that I don't drink alcohol. That I'm doing fine on my grades. That I'm still a virgin.
Three months of sitting in a wooden pew, listening to my father try to tell dead people how to live.
Three months of hoping for a brain aneurism.
I sigh.
It's pitch black outside, and a storm is moving in.
I adjust my mirror because the bastard in the convertible behind me turned on his high beams. I catch a glimpse of myself in the reflection and I sigh again.
Look at me.
I'm twenty years old.
I just finished my second year at a college that probably won't invite me back in the fall.
I've been in school for fourteen years and the only job I'm qualified to do is to stock the shelves of a supermarket.
If the statistics are right, I probably have a venereal disease.
Cue depressing music.
This isn't how it was supposed to happen.
I was supposed to be somewhere by now.
Be someone.
When I was twelve, I told myself that I would have a record deal by my eighteenth birthday.
I haven't picked up a guitar in six months. God knows how long it's been since I've sung sober.
The wind is picking up. It's starting to rain.
Things aren't right. Things aren't fine.
But no one tells me that.
They say it's all natural.
It's all normal.
Dreams die.
Passions fade.
Goals become more realistic.
It's all a part of growing up.
Growing up.
I hate that phrase.
I can't grow up.
You die after you grow up.
It's really storming now. The rain is falling sideways.
The guy with the obnoxious high beams is more stupid than I thought he was. In the midst of a Deluge, he steps on the gas and zips around me. I touch the brakes and let him go.
That's what I wish I could do.
Touch the brakes.
Put Father Time on a leash.
Slow things down just enough so I can savor them for once.
I wish...
I wish I could fly.
I round a corner and my heart stops.
The guy with the high beams is stopped in the middle of the road because the wind knocked over a tree.
I slam on the brakes, but I'm going too fast.
The front end of my truck plows into the back of the convertible.
I blink and I'm through the windshield.
Look at me.
I'm flying.
I land on the wet pavement, skid to a stop in the glow of the high beams.
Blood bubbles through my lips.
Father Time has broken his leash. It won't be long.
I'm sorry.
It's the only thing running through my cracked skull.
I'm sorry.
I want to ring the church bells.
Shout it from the rooftops.
Sing it from the mountains.
I want to tell the world, but I'm all alone on the asphalt.
This isn't how it was supposed to happen.
I can't die. I've never lived.
I can't move at all.
My vision is getting blurry.
Rain washes the blood from the corners of my mouth.
God destroyed the world with rain. Now He bathes her with it.
Jesus.
I can hear my heartbeat fragile in my ears.
Dear Jesus.
I am the thief on the cross.
Remember me.
I hear someone screaming.
I know I've done wrong.
Or are they singing?
But remember me when you come into your kingdom.
I can feel it coming.
Remember me.
And now...
It's time.
Time to fly.
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The Rain That Bathes the World Page 3