THE MONOTONOUS LANGUOR, part 1 of 4

The drive.

The miles unravel before us in silence. Until it was not. Silent. We have been up since six, and we need to be at District School 3663 by 9 a.m. I am lost in my thoughts, the meditative song sung by the rolling whitewalls serenading me mile after mile on Old Route 22. The faded billboards, messages from an earlier time of chicken fried steak and Holiday Inns and last chance gas, are rumors, their selling days done.

Watch out! I instinctively stand on the brake pedal, and we jerk to a stop. I TOLD you to stay on the interstate.

You OK, I ask? My Other, Co-Habitation, (OCH) nods before speaking again.

What is that?!

It looks familiar, it, it, it, looks…wild. Is it breathing? The heaving fur suggests yes. It stares at me, and I stare at it. We lock eyes. My OCH is talking but I am not listening to that. I am listening to something else altogether, a low hum in my chest. I watch this thing, this wild thing, and I think it pities me. How can that be? It is not supposed to be here, but I am, and maybe that is what those cavernous brown eyes are telling me before it turns away and lopes into a clump of low trees and high grass. Gone.

I need to make up time now. Lateness is not tolerated. And we are off, and I reflexively scan the rear-view mirror for miles, for another glimpse of whatever the hell that was and was not.

We pass a million dormant utility poles, frame by frame in a repeating film, and miles and miles of sagging fence, barbed wire masquerading as sad decorations on a bare Christmas tree. Beyond the fences, sit old ramshackle homes, in slow decay, no longer working farms, the families having been relocated, and these rotting shelters are now deteriorating dots and dashes on the land, braille for those who no longer own the gift of sight.

Christmas. Gram made eggnog cake. Or was that Easter?

Did you say something? My OCH does not turn to me but simply speaks the words to the windshield, blotted by the carcasses of a million insects. I stopped counting after the first meaty collision.

No. Talking out loud, I guess. There is no point in saying more.

It is a beautiful morning for an uncomfortable drive. The clouds are smiling, likely because they hover above all of it, all of us. I think I see a hawk. I push forward, over the steering wheel, shoulders to ears, hands at 11 and 1, and scan the sky, eyes rolling to the top of my head. Nothing. Maybe I imagined it.

When are we getting a new hands-free?

I like to drive.

Well, you are one of the last that do. It’s embarrassing. She mutters something about the neighbors—neighbors we don’t associate with. Not so much as a cup of coffee.

We’ll be there in about five minutes. I am multi-tasking, calculating time and the best way to end her, but her end date is many, many years away. Maybe later it will come to that. But not today. It would raise suspicion if I showed up without her. There is no time for that level of planning. I could simply dig a hole but, but…that would be too easy? Why do I think of it as a question?

Did I mention the clouds?