2011 Kia Soul

In a town on the East coast there was a grove of pines so black and thick that from every angle it couldn’t be pierced. At its edge there was a stream hidden by Concord grape vines. They inched towards the forest, but never made it far. Meanwhile the nascent pine saplings seemed to double year after year. If you had found the brook, one school-less morning with your best friend, you could have climbed up the obscured rock wall and jumped over the water. You could have traipsed through the thicket, discovering the lone birch bent over in an arch. You could have smelt the coral mushrooms and morels. He could have dared you to eat one. You could have sat on a bed of spent orange needles and discovered something about the way the cool air carrying death and rebirth makes you feel about boys your age.

But now it’s a parking lot.

You don’t like the view. You turn from the window back to your screen, but can’t help looking away again. Anything but another hour of Escherian spreadsheets. You listen to voices chatting in the hall.

“It’s hard being on the management side- I never know how much product to order, it’s like- and I’m afraid to ask the boss at this point.”

“Yeah.”

“You know, and I don’t want him to regret giving me the job.”

“Yeah. Don’t you get data from the stores though?”

“Well yeah but, who knows, one: how well they’re reporting it and two: how’s demand going to change.”

“Yeah, well I bet-”

“Oh, but it is nice because I got to show my dad my business card, so that’s pretty cool.”

“Yeah…”

Somewhere the boss is shut away in some mountain yoga retreat eating tantric peyote sandwiches. The boss’s title is something like “god emperor of management solutions” while yours is officially “shit-heel”.

It will be a damp spring morning, low clouds swelling over the misty hollows, when Missouri washes away. The mouth of the river will be an open maw from a divine beast, swallowing the drained out life. A few sycamores will watch. Trees that survived epochs and disasters of deep time dying, torn apart at the roots by arrogance. The artistry of the indifferent mechanism of evolution; now a log in a river. You will walk out of your home to a garden drowning, misremember a bible verse or a fortune cookie, and squint at the blotted out sun. The smell of the coming rain and the decaying organic matter will hit you, and you’ll wish you could weep. You know it. You know you know it.

An hour will pass. The rain will be tearing the shingles off your roof. You won’t need to look out at the rising water. The wood of the shotgun will have your old man’s name carved into it, nearly smoothed over by the generations of skin. Loading the 00 buck will pass as an unnoticed routine, but turning it over in your hands will feel like a deranged foreign act. Wind will whip the edge of your senses as time drags on and on and yet at the same time flashes by. You will taste the metal, and exhale your last hot breath.

On the other side of Bad River there was an ocean of sunflowers, all tall and proud, staring at the sun. They swayed and rustled in a susurrus that, if sufficiently high, could be translated into meaningless “isms” and momentary advice. “It is what it is” one might have said. Or, “Try not to feel like roadkill every now and then”. If you had waded through them at the right hour, the evening light may have fallen on an assortment of locusts and aphids. You could have run your fingers through the bristly stems and fuzzy leaves. You could have emerged back onto the road, staring down a 1970 F-150, starry-eyed and heavy.

And maybe you did. Maybe you walked back down the road into a patch of nameless town. Maybe you were out looking for yourself, or the person you used to be. Different atoms, same arrangement. Maybe you sauntered back to the cheap little hotel by yourself, made a cup of decaf, took a bath, pulled the shades down and relented at the false discovery.

But now it’s a parking lot.

You start up your 2011 Kia Soul. About five years ago the big players in LA started to let their offices out at 4:50pm, in a vain attempt to foster good will and to beat the traffic. Traffic cannot be beaten. Traffic beats you. We are here on this Earth for a brief time, during which we live to make traffic. It is perhaps the most successful organism to date. You approach the on-ramp to The 5 with your window down, huffing that exhaust particulate and drought season dry heat SoCal is known for. You merge into the fold of fellow high street employees, Harvard graduates, and college lacrosse bench warmers. On the radio they only play pop songs with the most choked out lifeless genetically modified precision molded hooks, or oldies from before women could vote.

You just think to yourself in silence. Every time it’s the same: “Would it actually be faster to walk?” And “I’m hungry.” And “I’m lonely.” You’re a fish in a bowl weekdays 9-5 (9-4:50) and a fish out of water on weekends, 7-10. You’ve been everyone else’s idea of yourself. Maybe one day you’ll be your own.

The Antarctic Republic will no longer be accepting new immigration. The declaration will hardly matter; the seawall separating the last continent from the fleet of destitute boats will have been closed for a decade already. Cargo ships and aircraft carriers once operated by “powerful” navies will have become city centers, while log rafts form a shanty town perimeter. The hungry will beg, until they drink the seawater and die. Thousands will go this way until all that’s left will be the skeleton of the makeshift city, half submerged.

They’ll have wondered about life beyond the wall. The last few sea people looking longingly up at the structure meant to last a thousand years. They’ll wonder if anyone is really still left in there. If there’s any way to scale or to beach the barrier to paradise without destroying it?

You take the 176A, Parker Road exit. The mess of dignified boulevards descends into desert. It’s amazing how quickly the city breaks away into dust country. You know you’re on the right street but you can’t find the place. It was maybe half a decade ago that you had ice cream there with your late friend. It was next to a tributary of the Santa Clara River. You’d went there with your friend after a rough breakup. It was almost closing but they served the red-eyed college kids anyway. You sat outside on the picnic table and listened to the roar of life in the brush by the water. You talked and joked until the sun went down and the mosquitoes woke up.

But now there’s just a dollar store and a parking lot.

You pull in anyway. Outside the brightness stings. You walk to the edge of the lot but there’s only a dried up divot. You will remember this moment, intertwined with the old one, until the end.