Written By: Robin S. Bloom
I told the guys, “ I better get my ass home, or I’ll have hell to pay with the Old Lady.” Just as I was pulling out, Donny stuck his head in the passenger’s side window and said, “If you go to Beanie’s, get this week’s special.”
That damn Donny and his power of suggestion. I put old Jezebelle on automatic pilot to Beanie’s Burgers drive thru.
***
I had my burger bolted down even before I hit Green Valley Road. I tuned in the Classic Rock station, and munched some fries.
It was the first warm night in April. I had my windows down enjoying the breeze and the smell of fresh plowed soil, until the earthy stench of manure found my nostrils. I hit the gas to blow out the stink of Miller’s Cow Pasture.
I took a sip of this week’s special — a milk shake. What I sucked up from the straw tasted like Milk of Magnesia. That asshole Donny — he knew I hated mint, and I fell for it hook, line, and sinker. I shoved more fries in my mouth to get rid of the taste.
Seger turned static and the only thing coming over the waves was someone banging the hell out of a piano.
A car came toward me. A little company on that lonesome road besides a sliver of fingernail moon. The car came closer using its full brights. I squinted against the glare and flickered my lights so the idiot would switch to low beam. He didn’t get the message. I squeezed my scorched eyeballs shut and stomped the brakes.
I don’t know what happened next and believe me, I’d tell you if I could.
***
Now I sit in this empty room except for what looks like an examination table.
I know they’re watching me.
When I can’t swallow another drop of slime in a tube they call food, I get a couple soggy fries in a little white paper bag, and a warm mint milk shake in a Styrofoam cup complete with straw.
When I press my ears shut from their piercing screeches, it is magically replaced by the thunder and tinkle of piano keys.
When my lungs struggle to breathe, fresh oxygen mixed with the aroma of cow dung is piped in.
There is a window but the view never changes. It’s always night with the thin smile of a crescent moon.
I guess they honed in on me those last ten minutes, thinking what I had experienced would give me comfort.
And you know, they’re kind of right — because it’s my only connection to Earth.
Robin S. Bloom, a native Pennsylvanian, lives in a small town between the Poconos and the Anthracite Coal Region.She is a watercolor artist who also likes to dip her pen into ink, and says writing is like painting with words.Inspired by her rural roots, her down-home stories have an underlying darkness she calls “Cozy-Creepy.”
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