The Passenger

My midnight-purple, repaired daily, flaming shit of a car is making its way across a stretch of highway in a fog as thick as steel. The voice to my right is shaterring my concentration, and for what? This passenger, this parasite yammers on about the world's most important crisis. His world's social crisis...
"Should I tell J that I fucked her best friend? I know it was a shitty thing to do, but she will probably forgive me."
If God can forgive than I'm sure she can, I say. If I tell the priest in a box my sins than God will consider the slate clean and my soul purified. This is one of our great myths. Our great faith in honesty is the best policy. Honesty has nothing to do with God's choice for heaven and hell. After all, he'll know whether you mean it or not.
The road gradually winds to the right. I switch to the brights.
"I was just so drunk and we were in a fight and I wasn't thinking clearly. I really screwed this up. I think I have this subconscious desire to end my relationships when they get too serious."
And our lives are just that simple. You have to keep a positive attitude, I say. Just tell the truth and I'm sure she will respect you for it. And maybe God subconsciously ends our lives when they get too serious. When we start listening to every word, hearing every sentence, and implying every meaning to our heap of social propaganda. One man says something to another to spite his girlfriend, the other replies to appease his own selfish search for faith. Me and this passenger, this parasite...we speak different languages.
The road gets narrow and the fog grows thicker. The patter of rain against the rattling hood is all I can hear.
"This all started when I went to school. I could have avoided this if I just stayed at home and went to community college."
And If I stayed home I wouldn't be driving this car, telling you what you want to hear. God's consciousness is redundancy to its greatest extent. If he isn't aware of the death that results from faith, then he isn't aware of much at all. The thoughts flow in and are driven off course by fragments of ignorance.
The window beside me begins to shake against powerful gusts of wind. I move my face closer to the windshield in hopes of getting a better view of the road.
"I just don't know what I'm doing here anymore. I don't know if J is right one."
Picking the right one. Is that any different from picking the right TV station or choosing the right telephone service? I was never able to commit to a religion, I was never able to commit to a person. Everything around me changes so fast. To the left trees and darkness fly by at 84 miles an hour. To the right I lose track of what this passenger, this parasite is saying. At 84 miles an hour I can physically feel the sickness. My head is infected and it is spreading to every pore on my body. His whiny voice, his worthless problems, his meaningless speech...I've heard it before. I've heard it all before. When you've heard everything their is to tell, what is left? Who is going to help me with my meaningless quest for reassurance?
"Are you listening to me?"
I say yes. I really mean no. But he would never tell the difference. He was never there for me.
Staring blankly into the face of my passenger, my all-knowing, devout parasite, the car slows drastically against the potential energy of a highway divider. Spinning and flipping in the air like an Olympic ice skater, my flaming piece of shit hurtles the four foot slab of cement and slides against the grass alongside the highway. The fog moves in penetrating the cracks of the windshield and begins to fill the capsized interior. I can see the driverside wheel still spinning, the marks in the dirt where my car slid, the stretch of highway, the stretch of space, the distance we've travelled to get here. And he is still in the car, seatbelt buckled, staring into my face. I'd like to think he had his first experience that day, he learned to walk. With a shard of glass through my neck the words come as quick as thoughts. To him they resemble shrill whimpers of agony, a sound he won't forget. We speak a different language, but I think he understands me now. My quick and desperate inhalations cease as I choke down the pool of blood containing my face. The spatters of life sustaining liquid smack against the back of my throat and each drop burns worse than any kind of searing flesh. My panic turns to relief as I go numb and unconscious. I stray away from the accident and return to my friends playing kickball underneath the bridge in Brooklyn. I was eight years old and all there is to know is still a mystery to me. No sins to confess, and no man to appease. All I have to do is kick the ball and run. Run like my life depended on it. My soul taking shape in this incredible child. Run like my life was about to begin.
"Hey Dan you're up"
I smile. I kick the ball and run like hell.