The sun seems massive, taking up the whole horizon. I pop a Xanax and hit the vape. The dusk sky above seems to shift. A skateboard rolls over to me, I hop on it, standing at the front like the figurehead of a ship. I do a kickflip. I do another kickflip. The skateboard’s owner comes over to me, I think we’re shaking hands, we fail at dapping each other up.
“Get me on snap.” He says
“Snap messenger?”
“Snapchat.”
“People still use that?” I say. He laughs, flipping me off, goes back to join his friends. I walk in the shadow from industrial silos. Drones fly in formation overhead, hiding the stars behind an advert for Coca-Cola.
I drive through Kulm, North Dakota. Everywhere is closed. I pull the Hyundai Sonata by a campground, fall asleep, wake up. It is still night time. I drive slowly round the town, try to remember old Cowboy films. I head West, confused where I am. I pass lakes that shine like liquid metal. Keep driving. A town called Lehr is at the end of a long, straight road. The sun is rising behind me, bouncing off the rearview and across my face, the night receding again into the shadows of buildings and rocks. Drive south, another town, sleep in the car, go to Grandma’s Kuchen for something to eat. All the houses here are made of wood, some houses had the paint peeling and fading like sunburnt skin. I eat an apple pie, sitting on the hood of my car, waving at people as they walk past.
There’s a depression eating away at the peripheral of my consciousness. I can feel it, maggotlike, so needed to keep my brain occupied until it passed. I entertain myself by writing a fictional diary from the point of view of an English office worker, a kind of Groundhog Day where everybody repeats their actions in a loop except that time progresses. I realise hours have passed. The sun is beginning to set again. I stop for gas, grab a six pack of burgers and hit the road, drive through Lowell, Eureka, Mound City. The Sonata crosses the Missouri River, I haven't seen another car all evening. We take a road off the interstate through empty fields lit by the light of the moon. On the radio is a show for Christians to phone in and get advice from a priest who also happened to be a DJ. I realise I’ve been driving on the wrong side of the road for a while, so I pull over and try to get some sleep.
