“Let’s just drive for a bit,” I say. I need some time. Two turns and we hit the highway. I roll the windows down and chew on a fingernail. The fog is thick, but we plow through it with fishbowls for headlights. The road is empty. Even the roadkill has gone home for the night, fleeing into the darkness of trees on either side of the highway. The painted lines on the concrete pulse and the wind is loud; I am getting the time I need.
My ears are ringing. I don’t know if they ring because she hit me there, or maybe they ring because I hid a piece of the truth in the hollow space of my eardrum and it is making itself known. Maybe they just ring from the wind whipping through the car.
You are too loud, say the trees that fill the darkness.
We are quiet as we can be, I say.
I am talking to the road, say the trees.
It is not our fault, we did not build ourselves, say the rocks that were crushed to make the road.
There are none of us left that can even remember what quiet sounds like, say the trees.
It is not our fault, say the rocks.
-J. SAMUEL YINGLING
