Coming Up, Falling Down
Benjamin Smart

There’s a massive dead flathead bobbing with the wake against the rocks, speaking to me. Says he went his whole life without getting got. Long way that got him. Could’ve been a prize on someone’s mantle. Now he’s a swollen musk of himself. Food for the coons.
I unhook the jig from my rod, wave it along my right side, and cast out. I don’t hear it hit, but I see the rings it ripples back on the calm. I’m eighty miles away from home, been awake for three days, and not a damn bit tired.
It’s eight in the morning. The sun’s sending golden threads across the lake. Couple hours ago I had the notion of coming here and breaking the state record for the largest flathead. Ninety-seven pounds in 1982. There’s some strange electricity running through me, powering my arms and legs and sparking up to the roots of my neck.
It’s late January. Below freezing. I’m in a short-sleeve, but I’m not cold. Weather doesn’t get to me how it does others.
My jig reaches me, and I swing the pole around and cast out again. While I’m doing this, I spot behind me a ridge way up on the hill. It’s dusted with fog, yet I can see these craggy rocks poking out from the face. I set down my reel, my jig still casted half-way out, and set off towards it with the vague idea of scoping out the lake from up there.
As I come through the forest and closer to the ridge, a gentle weightlessness expands through me, and I feel as though I may float away. The face, all rough and covered in green, is an easy climb, and I sprint up it, out of breath by the top. I find a tooth-shaped rock jutting from the face and balance myself on it and stare out over the calm. This lake is a New Deal project. A bunch of engineers and laborers flooded this valley nearly a century ago so I could look out over it in this moment. A new slate of glass nestled between hills wooled in green.
I know who I am now. Three months ago I was an inpatient at West Community Health Center. I spent seventeen days in there, and by the time I left I was Bipolar Type I. Everything in your head changes after something like that. You’re not an employee; you’re not a fisherman, somebody’s son, or really even an individual anymore: you’re Bipolar. At least that’s the way the doctors make it seem, sending you home with instructions for your life.
That all bothered me for a long time, but it seems far away now. I’m no longer a convict of mental illness. I’m myself again. Finally myself again.
A squirrel jolts tree to tree before me, and the branches shake it away. Right then I know if I grab onto one and drop off the ledge, I’ll be okay. It’ll let me down easy. So I grip the one closest me, step off. The fucking thing snaps in two, and I fall a good fifteen feet. My legs go soft under me, and my back takes the blunt of it, all the air ripping and tunneling out of me. I wheeze and gripe for a few minutes before I gather enough of myself to stand. By then blood has pooled and stained on my right side. Lifting it back, I find a huge gash, cut well into the muscle. There’s no pain; I only laugh at the wound. I trek back up the hill.
This isn’t the first time I’ve done something like that: a few months ago I took a voluntary fall off my two-story balcony. I remember wanting to feel what it was like to let go to gravity, so I leaned back on the railing. Half-way over it, I realized that I’d have to go all the way to know anything. So I fell, and all the people who were partying at my place gathered around as my wind came back. And that wasn’t even what got me in the hospital that day. What did me in was taking my shirt off and walking through a busy four-lane highway with a great black mass in the sky beckoning me further. It seemed perfectly reasonable at the time. I was the Son of God, and my two-story fall off the balcony was my sacrifice and the people’s salvation. Only now do I realize how close I had been.
A Cessna flies over me, and I think of Braydee. I think of how that day was the first time I ever saw her cry. It’s been a long time since she crossed my mind; it hurts all over again. Her voice wavered the last time I saw her, idling in her Rover, trying to convince me she was serious. I have a bad habit of not taking people seriously.
She tried so hard to make it work. She was there through the hospital, through the sleeping nineteen hours on Seroquel, through the weight gain on Zyprexa, and through all the things I didn’t know how to handle. I haven’t seen her for two months, though she still answers the phone when I call. There’s no one else, even months later, and she knows that. Usually I remember that too: she hangs up when I don’t.
But her memory is different this time. She’s not something I lost, a path I barricaded myself from, but just one experience, one step along the eternal walk of my life. I don’t need her anymore. On this rock upon this ledge looking out over this lake in this great land, I am completely and utterly alone and I don’t need anyone.
The branches shiver in the breeze. They’re skeletons of themselves, grey with winter. I step off the rock onto the green, mosey through the brush till I find a trail. The whole time The House of the Rising Sun repeats in my head, and pretty soon I’m singing it. The trail winds and bobs, and on it I plant my steps carefully. Blood freezes and hardens on my right side. Now it hurts. I limp awkwardly along.
Two people appear before me through the brushwork, trekking calmly after their dog. It’s not on a leash, and it stops when it sees me, barking. The taller one with a trimmed and styled beard tries calming it. I keep walking. The shorter one is a woman, her hair black and purple in places, tattoos clustered on her neck and arms.
I come closer and give them my warmest, friendliest hello. There’s a powerful peacefulness in me, and I want to spread it. They smile nervously, both their eyes on my right side.
“You alright, man?” The guys asks.
“Oh, yeah, I’m fine. Just had a little fall back there. I saw this squirrel on the branch. A gray squirrel. And I saw the branch it was on and thought that if I grabbed onto it and stepped off then it would let me down gently if I stepped off and the fucking thing broke in two.” I say, barely audibly through my laughter.
I walk closer, see they’re both around my age, late twenties. They don’t move at all.
“I’m not sure,” The woman says, “that looks pretty bad. You’re limping.”
“Look, that wasn’t the first fall I’ve taken.” Again laughing. “Trust me, I’m fine.”
“You’re out here in a t-shirt.” She says, more to herself than anyone else, concern in her voice. “Are you sure you’re alright?”
“I am absolutely positive. Trust me.” I can’t stop laughing.
The woman’s concern doesn’t fade. “What’s your name?” Suddenly, she smiles and moves closer.
“Marshall.”
“I’m Paige.” She shakes my hand, and the dog comes over.
I calm and slow myself, kneel before it. Right away it warms up to me, wagging its tail and licking my hand and sniffing.
“Your side looks really bad.” She’s bent over to examine me.
I stand up.
“Can you lift up your shirt?”
I do as told, still laughing for some reason.
“Oh, honey, that’s deep. Why don’t we get that cleaned up? At my camper. Follow me. Come on.” She puts an arm on my back and guides me as if I had been resisting.
The whole thing is hilarious to me, and I talk all the way there. “Do you know what the state record for Flathead Catfish is? Ninety-seven pounds.” I answer myself before they can. “That’s why I’m here. I came to the north shore . . .” I keep and keep and keep talking. What I say isn’t important to them, I can tell, but rather how much I say and how fast I say it.
They lead me through the forest on the trail. The guy is completely silent, walking ahead and only glancing back with these wide, engaged eyes.
But Paige has all sorts of interest in what I say, and that keeps me talking. It’s hard to say exactly what she asks me, and I’m not really answering. Each question sends me off on some ambiguously-related tangent from which the conversation doesn’t return, though I do notice that they’re prying questions, non-invasively probing my situation. And that makes me feel good in a strange way. They make it seem like she cares. It’s been so long since I felt that way.
I ask her for her name.
“Paige.”
I pause. “Did you already tell me that?”
“Yes.” She smiles.
“Sorry. Sometimes I get things mixed up.”
“It’s okay.” She coaxes. “Is there something going on with you?”
“Like what?”
“Like anything.”
“I’ve been up for a few days.” I regret it as soon as I say it, laughing at myself.
“How long is a few?”
“Three.”
“You haven’t slept in three days?”
“No.”
“Not at all?”
“No.”
“Oh, honey, that’s not good.”
“It’s okay.” I try to ease her. “I do it all the time.”
“Are you Bipolar or something?”
I stop, turn. “How did you know that?”
I do this more aggressively than intended, and she’s quick to explain.
“My sister is Bipolar. I’m familiar with it.”
“Oh.” I pause, and then laugh again. “Sorry. You just scared me when you said that.”
“Scared you?”
“I don’t know.”
For a second I think she’s gonna zone in on this new revelation, but switches topics just as soon as she can. Next thing I know, we’re laughing and joking again, and that problem is miles away from me.
She walks backwards, facing me. “You seem antsy. Are you sure you’re alright?”
“Yeah.” I know she’s right. I am antsy. But, at the same time, I know she’s never been more wrong about anything. All I am is myself. And I know that as well as my name as I travel on this trail through the forest facing the woman Paige walking backwards towards her camper.
We come to a clearing. RVs are parked on the far side of it, and in between all the trees there’s lawn-grass cut all short and neat. We step onto the green and come into sight of her camper.
And it’s right then, right as I step onto that soft, short grass, that I know that I am God. And I know that she will bring me into her camper and ease my pain with her medicine and then I will tell her. And her eyes. Her eyes will shine like they only can for the Son of God stepping out from a desert of dead sand.
Soon I’m at the camper. I step in carefully. The guy and their dog stay outside, him collapsed in a lawn chair and the dog eyeing me, tail wagging.
There’s no fear once I’m inside, that’s all circled into a wide drain within me. Instead I am overcome with the kind of peace and easiness that only the Son of God can have. I ask her what they’re doing out here.
“Seeing the country, mostly.”
“Where you from?”
“We’re from Santa Fe.”
“Long way from home.”
Without asking, I sit down and take in the camper. It’s one of those oval ones you tow behind something with enough horsepower, and the inside’s ordered and clean.
“This is a super nice camper. Congrats.”
“Thank you.” She chuckles. “And we work from home. So, as long as this old thing has wifi, this is our home.”
“That’s nice.” I say “That’s really nice.” There’s a smile on my face; something about what she said plastered it on there.
“Where are you from?” She has her arms crossed now. I can feel an uneasiness radiating from her as she tries to fill the silence.
“Nowhere.” I say.
“Well, what do you do?”
“I’m a garbage man. You know, those guys you see riding on the back of the trucks? That’s me. Well,” I pause, “probably not anymore.”
“Why’s that?”
“I haven’t gone in for a few days.” The reality of it comes over me as I say it, and there’s suddenly this sharp panic expanding through me.
I stand up.
“Hey. Hey.” She uncrosses her arms and steps over to me. “Sit down. Sit down. We need to take care of that side of yours before you go anywhere.”
“I have to talk to my supervisor.”
“I promise.” She smiles, coaxing me back down. “That everything is gonna be alright. Whatever happens. Just sit back down.”
I hesitate, then give in. She has one of the voices you want to listen to, like she’s been here before, and that soothes me.
“Do you have anyone you call, Marshall?”
“For what?”
“For anything.”
“Yeah, I guess I do.” I pat my pockets; my phone isn’t there.
“Oh, I guess I lost my phone somewhere.”
“That’s not good.”
“It’s fine. It probably fell out when I fell.”
“Do you know someone’s number we can call? Just to let them know you’re doing alright.”
There’s only one number I have memorized, and that’s Braydee’s. All that comes into my head is how disappointed she’ll be when she gets a call like this. I don’t answer the question.
She asks me again. And again.
“Yeah. One.” I say, the words spaced far apart.
“Want me to give them a call?”
“Why would I want that?”
“It might be a little hard to drive with your side like that.”
I look down. The blood on the shirt has begun to really harden and crust, and the scabs peel at the wound when I shift in my seat. It starts to hurt again. I’m sure it’s been hurting this whole time, but my body’s been somewhere else.
“Yeah. It might me.” I flip my head back towards her.
“What’s that number? I’ll give them a call.”
I recite it to her with a great deal of consternation.
“And who is it I’m calling?”
“Braydee. My ex-girlfriend.”
Her eyes dart onto and off me when I say this.
The phone rings and rings and rings. With each one I become more hopeful that she won’t pick up. At the seventh ring, I’m almost sure of it. But just then she answers.
Paige isn’t making the call over the speaker, yet Braydee’s voice still finds me. And the pain and the regret find me too, and I shoot up from the seat and hustle out of the camper and take off sprinting across the green.
Paige yells after me, but I don’t turn back. She’s miles away from me now.
I sprint through the forest and down the face and onto the shore along the calm. My rod lies where I left it. I don’t pick it up. I have too much to do.
I run all the way to my truck, out of breath but not slowing down. I jut in the key and turn it over, spin the tires as I take off down the blacktop. I start to laugh. I laugh the whole way.
There’s no way I’ll ever know how fast I’m going. My tires lift as I high-tail it on the bend. A black mass jumps out in front of me, and there’s no way to react right. Knee-jerk reaction. I twist the wheel, and my truck flips off the road and down into the ditch.
When I come to, I’m laying on the roof of the cab. Blood pools in my eye and my arm throbs with its own tiny heart. I crawl past the pain and out of the cab through the shattered back window.
I stand, walk up the ditch to the road. There’s a lady stopped in the middle on her phone, runs over when she sees me. I run too. Away from her. Away from Paige and Braydee and my job and my diagnosis and everything. A black mass spreads across the sky over me. As I’m running, I think of how I saw the same black mass in the sky as I walked across that four-lane highway. My legs give out. I take a tumble and roll all the way down the hill.
I unhook the jig from my rod, wave it along my right side, and cast out. I don’t hear it hit, but I see the rings it ripples back on the calm. I’m eighty miles away from home, been awake for three days, and not a damn bit tired.
It’s eight in the morning. The sun’s sending golden threads across the lake. Couple hours ago I had the notion of coming here and breaking the state record for the largest flathead. Ninety-seven pounds in 1982. There’s some strange electricity running through me, powering my arms and legs and sparking up to the roots of my neck.
It’s late January. Below freezing. I’m in a short-sleeve, but I’m not cold. Weather doesn’t get to me how it does others.
My jig reaches me, and I swing the pole around and cast out again. While I’m doing this, I spot behind me a ridge way up on the hill. It’s dusted with fog, yet I can see these craggy rocks poking out from the face. I set down my reel, my jig still casted half-way out, and set off towards it with the vague idea of scoping out the lake from up there.
As I come through the forest and closer to the ridge, a gentle weightlessness expands through me, and I feel as though I may float away. The face, all rough and covered in green, is an easy climb, and I sprint up it, out of breath by the top. I find a tooth-shaped rock jutting from the face and balance myself on it and stare out over the calm. This lake is a New Deal project. A bunch of engineers and laborers flooded this valley nearly a century ago so I could look out over it in this moment. A new slate of glass nestled between hills wooled in green.
I know who I am now. Three months ago I was an inpatient at West Community Health Center. I spent seventeen days in there, and by the time I left I was Bipolar Type I. Everything in your head changes after something like that. You’re not an employee; you’re not a fisherman, somebody’s son, or really even an individual anymore: you’re Bipolar. At least that’s the way the doctors make it seem, sending you home with instructions for your life.
That all bothered me for a long time, but it seems far away now. I’m no longer a convict of mental illness. I’m myself again. Finally myself again.
A squirrel jolts tree to tree before me, and the branches shake it away. Right then I know if I grab onto one and drop off the ledge, I’ll be okay. It’ll let me down easy. So I grip the one closest me, step off. The fucking thing snaps in two, and I fall a good fifteen feet. My legs go soft under me, and my back takes the blunt of it, all the air ripping and tunneling out of me. I wheeze and gripe for a few minutes before I gather enough of myself to stand. By then blood has pooled and stained on my right side. Lifting it back, I find a huge gash, cut well into the muscle. There’s no pain; I only laugh at the wound. I trek back up the hill.
This isn’t the first time I’ve done something like that: a few months ago I took a voluntary fall off my two-story balcony. I remember wanting to feel what it was like to let go to gravity, so I leaned back on the railing. Half-way over it, I realized that I’d have to go all the way to know anything. So I fell, and all the people who were partying at my place gathered around as my wind came back. And that wasn’t even what got me in the hospital that day. What did me in was taking my shirt off and walking through a busy four-lane highway with a great black mass in the sky beckoning me further. It seemed perfectly reasonable at the time. I was the Son of God, and my two-story fall off the balcony was my sacrifice and the people’s salvation. Only now do I realize how close I had been.
A Cessna flies over me, and I think of Braydee. I think of how that day was the first time I ever saw her cry. It’s been a long time since she crossed my mind; it hurts all over again. Her voice wavered the last time I saw her, idling in her Rover, trying to convince me she was serious. I have a bad habit of not taking people seriously.
She tried so hard to make it work. She was there through the hospital, through the sleeping nineteen hours on Seroquel, through the weight gain on Zyprexa, and through all the things I didn’t know how to handle. I haven’t seen her for two months, though she still answers the phone when I call. There’s no one else, even months later, and she knows that. Usually I remember that too: she hangs up when I don’t.
But her memory is different this time. She’s not something I lost, a path I barricaded myself from, but just one experience, one step along the eternal walk of my life. I don’t need her anymore. On this rock upon this ledge looking out over this lake in this great land, I am completely and utterly alone and I don’t need anyone.
The branches shiver in the breeze. They’re skeletons of themselves, grey with winter. I step off the rock onto the green, mosey through the brush till I find a trail. The whole time The House of the Rising Sun repeats in my head, and pretty soon I’m singing it. The trail winds and bobs, and on it I plant my steps carefully. Blood freezes and hardens on my right side. Now it hurts. I limp awkwardly along.
Two people appear before me through the brushwork, trekking calmly after their dog. It’s not on a leash, and it stops when it sees me, barking. The taller one with a trimmed and styled beard tries calming it. I keep walking. The shorter one is a woman, her hair black and purple in places, tattoos clustered on her neck and arms.
I come closer and give them my warmest, friendliest hello. There’s a powerful peacefulness in me, and I want to spread it. They smile nervously, both their eyes on my right side.
“You alright, man?” The guys asks.
“Oh, yeah, I’m fine. Just had a little fall back there. I saw this squirrel on the branch. A gray squirrel. And I saw the branch it was on and thought that if I grabbed onto it and stepped off then it would let me down gently if I stepped off and the fucking thing broke in two.” I say, barely audibly through my laughter.
I walk closer, see they’re both around my age, late twenties. They don’t move at all.
“I’m not sure,” The woman says, “that looks pretty bad. You’re limping.”
“Look, that wasn’t the first fall I’ve taken.” Again laughing. “Trust me, I’m fine.”
“You’re out here in a t-shirt.” She says, more to herself than anyone else, concern in her voice. “Are you sure you’re alright?”
“I am absolutely positive. Trust me.” I can’t stop laughing.
The woman’s concern doesn’t fade. “What’s your name?” Suddenly, she smiles and moves closer.
“Marshall.”
“I’m Paige.” She shakes my hand, and the dog comes over.
I calm and slow myself, kneel before it. Right away it warms up to me, wagging its tail and licking my hand and sniffing.
“Your side looks really bad.” She’s bent over to examine me.
I stand up.
“Can you lift up your shirt?”
I do as told, still laughing for some reason.
“Oh, honey, that’s deep. Why don’t we get that cleaned up? At my camper. Follow me. Come on.” She puts an arm on my back and guides me as if I had been resisting.
The whole thing is hilarious to me, and I talk all the way there. “Do you know what the state record for Flathead Catfish is? Ninety-seven pounds.” I answer myself before they can. “That’s why I’m here. I came to the north shore . . .” I keep and keep and keep talking. What I say isn’t important to them, I can tell, but rather how much I say and how fast I say it.
They lead me through the forest on the trail. The guy is completely silent, walking ahead and only glancing back with these wide, engaged eyes.
But Paige has all sorts of interest in what I say, and that keeps me talking. It’s hard to say exactly what she asks me, and I’m not really answering. Each question sends me off on some ambiguously-related tangent from which the conversation doesn’t return, though I do notice that they’re prying questions, non-invasively probing my situation. And that makes me feel good in a strange way. They make it seem like she cares. It’s been so long since I felt that way.
I ask her for her name.
“Paige.”
I pause. “Did you already tell me that?”
“Yes.” She smiles.
“Sorry. Sometimes I get things mixed up.”
“It’s okay.” She coaxes. “Is there something going on with you?”
“Like what?”
“Like anything.”
“I’ve been up for a few days.” I regret it as soon as I say it, laughing at myself.
“How long is a few?”
“Three.”
“You haven’t slept in three days?”
“No.”
“Not at all?”
“No.”
“Oh, honey, that’s not good.”
“It’s okay.” I try to ease her. “I do it all the time.”
“Are you Bipolar or something?”
I stop, turn. “How did you know that?”
I do this more aggressively than intended, and she’s quick to explain.
“My sister is Bipolar. I’m familiar with it.”
“Oh.” I pause, and then laugh again. “Sorry. You just scared me when you said that.”
“Scared you?”
“I don’t know.”
For a second I think she’s gonna zone in on this new revelation, but switches topics just as soon as she can. Next thing I know, we’re laughing and joking again, and that problem is miles away from me.
She walks backwards, facing me. “You seem antsy. Are you sure you’re alright?”
“Yeah.” I know she’s right. I am antsy. But, at the same time, I know she’s never been more wrong about anything. All I am is myself. And I know that as well as my name as I travel on this trail through the forest facing the woman Paige walking backwards towards her camper.
We come to a clearing. RVs are parked on the far side of it, and in between all the trees there’s lawn-grass cut all short and neat. We step onto the green and come into sight of her camper.
And it’s right then, right as I step onto that soft, short grass, that I know that I am God. And I know that she will bring me into her camper and ease my pain with her medicine and then I will tell her. And her eyes. Her eyes will shine like they only can for the Son of God stepping out from a desert of dead sand.
Soon I’m at the camper. I step in carefully. The guy and their dog stay outside, him collapsed in a lawn chair and the dog eyeing me, tail wagging.
There’s no fear once I’m inside, that’s all circled into a wide drain within me. Instead I am overcome with the kind of peace and easiness that only the Son of God can have. I ask her what they’re doing out here.
“Seeing the country, mostly.”
“Where you from?”
“We’re from Santa Fe.”
“Long way from home.”
Without asking, I sit down and take in the camper. It’s one of those oval ones you tow behind something with enough horsepower, and the inside’s ordered and clean.
“This is a super nice camper. Congrats.”
“Thank you.” She chuckles. “And we work from home. So, as long as this old thing has wifi, this is our home.”
“That’s nice.” I say “That’s really nice.” There’s a smile on my face; something about what she said plastered it on there.
“Where are you from?” She has her arms crossed now. I can feel an uneasiness radiating from her as she tries to fill the silence.
“Nowhere.” I say.
“Well, what do you do?”
“I’m a garbage man. You know, those guys you see riding on the back of the trucks? That’s me. Well,” I pause, “probably not anymore.”
“Why’s that?”
“I haven’t gone in for a few days.” The reality of it comes over me as I say it, and there’s suddenly this sharp panic expanding through me.
I stand up.
“Hey. Hey.” She uncrosses her arms and steps over to me. “Sit down. Sit down. We need to take care of that side of yours before you go anywhere.”
“I have to talk to my supervisor.”
“I promise.” She smiles, coaxing me back down. “That everything is gonna be alright. Whatever happens. Just sit back down.”
I hesitate, then give in. She has one of the voices you want to listen to, like she’s been here before, and that soothes me.
“Do you have anyone you call, Marshall?”
“For what?”
“For anything.”
“Yeah, I guess I do.” I pat my pockets; my phone isn’t there.
“Oh, I guess I lost my phone somewhere.”
“That’s not good.”
“It’s fine. It probably fell out when I fell.”
“Do you know someone’s number we can call? Just to let them know you’re doing alright.”
There’s only one number I have memorized, and that’s Braydee’s. All that comes into my head is how disappointed she’ll be when she gets a call like this. I don’t answer the question.
She asks me again. And again.
“Yeah. One.” I say, the words spaced far apart.
“Want me to give them a call?”
“Why would I want that?”
“It might be a little hard to drive with your side like that.”
I look down. The blood on the shirt has begun to really harden and crust, and the scabs peel at the wound when I shift in my seat. It starts to hurt again. I’m sure it’s been hurting this whole time, but my body’s been somewhere else.
“Yeah. It might me.” I flip my head back towards her.
“What’s that number? I’ll give them a call.”
I recite it to her with a great deal of consternation.
“And who is it I’m calling?”
“Braydee. My ex-girlfriend.”
Her eyes dart onto and off me when I say this.
The phone rings and rings and rings. With each one I become more hopeful that she won’t pick up. At the seventh ring, I’m almost sure of it. But just then she answers.
Paige isn’t making the call over the speaker, yet Braydee’s voice still finds me. And the pain and the regret find me too, and I shoot up from the seat and hustle out of the camper and take off sprinting across the green.
Paige yells after me, but I don’t turn back. She’s miles away from me now.
I sprint through the forest and down the face and onto the shore along the calm. My rod lies where I left it. I don’t pick it up. I have too much to do.
I run all the way to my truck, out of breath but not slowing down. I jut in the key and turn it over, spin the tires as I take off down the blacktop. I start to laugh. I laugh the whole way.
There’s no way I’ll ever know how fast I’m going. My tires lift as I high-tail it on the bend. A black mass jumps out in front of me, and there’s no way to react right. Knee-jerk reaction. I twist the wheel, and my truck flips off the road and down into the ditch.
When I come to, I’m laying on the roof of the cab. Blood pools in my eye and my arm throbs with its own tiny heart. I crawl past the pain and out of the cab through the shattered back window.
I stand, walk up the ditch to the road. There’s a lady stopped in the middle on her phone, runs over when she sees me. I run too. Away from her. Away from Paige and Braydee and my job and my diagnosis and everything. A black mass spreads across the sky over me. As I’m running, I think of how I saw the same black mass in the sky as I walked across that four-lane highway. My legs give out. I take a tumble and roll all the way down the hill.