Lead

I head to the lakefront, accelerating along the gentle ribbon until I hit construction and roll the windows up to avoid the dust but can’t escape the keen sulfur of fresh asphalt being laid down. The road is familiar but the bends and curves aren’t the same; they don’t glide quite like they do in my mind and my arms move faster to rotate the wheel than they should — than they did when I took this road last. I drop the accelerator to the floor to squeeze through an amber light that’s on the cusp of red.

On the north side of the lake I skirt up a hill before reaching the first site on my pilgrimage. I turn down the music, and slow to a crawl. There’s one car in her driveway.

I step on the gas and turn the music back on.

Back on Lakeshore, experiencing déjà vu except not drunk and not in danger of killing myself. My arms trace helices in front of me, hypnotizing, and I turn right and left and onto the street of a childhood friend. At first, I can’t remember which house was his, but soon place the front parlour in my mind and recognize the house once again; it’s a short detour from the ritual.

Now heading to the real destination, the place where I heard my guts splatter on the ground in front of me — kowtowing in the dirt and blood. It’s daytime so the illusion is weak but I can’t dispel it entirely, and when I reach her house there are two trucks I don’t remember and I can’t spy anything in the parallax view afforded to me as I drive past the pressure-treated fence.

One last place to be — one last stop on the nightmare rerun. It’s not far from my spilt viscera and I experience catharsis through my foot, feeling thrust back in the leather seat and like I’m escaping something even though I’m steering straight for it. Through trees lining the driveway I spy someone — him — and I pivot and perform a two-point turn and scramble down the road.

Too close to the maelstrom. An unintended encounter with a singularity.

I drive home, the eye of the hurricane, relived.


-M

May 13th, 2009