Blocking his view of the gas pumps, gleaming in the bright morning sunshine, a Jurassic monument poses frozen mid-stride in front of the Sinclair station.
The green brontosaurus reminds Zayn of his childhood, of a goofy dinosaur statue in the children’s section of his hometown bookstore. Back then, he lolled around under its giant feet like a pile of scat reading fantasy books, oblivious to the fact that the beast was extinct, and that the same fate awaits humans, if they don’t stop the slow-crawling meteor of their own making.
He woke at dawn, convinced that he would execute his plan to burn the wool off people’s eyes still trapped in la-la land, like his once were. Except that now after reaching his destination, his confidence has stalled as if tail-whipped out from under him by the brontosaurus.
An 18-wheeler roars by, thrusting a hot wave against his back, urging him like a littered shopping bag cartwheeling across the road, nearly pummeled by traffic. Born into the Western world’s obsession with consumption, indoctrinated into trashing the earth as a child, it depresses him to remember his contribution to the earth’s demise. The plastic bottles of Kool Aid he’d guzzled during his reckless youth, the hundreds of gallons of gas burned in pursuit of suburban soccer league glory. Foolish. Even after his college enlightenment, he bears the shameful weight like an invisible participation medal around his neck.
But, today, he’s vowed to vindicate his gas usage. And humanity’s.
He props his vintage 10-speed against one of the dinosaur’s girthy legs and removes his plastic jug from the rear rack. Closing his eyes, he takes a minute to retreat into meditation, when a sudden wind gust from the direction of the gas pumps hammers his lungs with nauseating fumes, jumping him like a fired-up engine. Revolted, his face flushes with disgust and renewed drive. In a single motion he snatches up his jug and smacks the dinosaur’s placid snout on his way toward the door, overlooking the array of loud advertisements begging him to choose their brand of vices, as he enters.
Compared to different franchises, he had felt a faint relation to the flowy red cursive Sinclair sign and the building’s minimalist exterior. Like how he selects the best simple-themed, sustainably-sourced restaurants, he chose the Sinclair’s no-fuss layout as the site to commit the first stage of his plan. Catfished, however, by the green facade, he finds nothing but shelves fat with sugar and dehydrated meat imposters.
The dietary hedonism wrenches his vegan-adjusted guts. Instantly he wonders why he would subject himself to this vomitous experience instead of prepaying at the pump. Because he doesn’t own a credit card, of course. Or even a shallow digital footprint, to boot.
Standing in line, he regards the empty canister dangling from his clammy palm. Utility-grade plastic that he’s brought on countless spiritual retreats and wilderness excursions as a water vessel. He has had the thrilling pleasure of filling it with natural spring water flowing out of the ground, free for all. It stings to think of filling it with anything purchasable, let alone poison which would render it useless for anything except transporting more poison in the future.
A waist-high little girl wearing a pink t-shirt and Dalmatian-spotted capris shuffles by toting a large bag of Cheetos and a blue Slushie, which has discolored her brown lips into a sticky-looking bruise. Her extremely pregnant mother tags along, cradling her own large styrofoam cup against the side of her breast. The two join the little girl’s apparent father, whose gaze is too spellbound by the cigarette selection behind the counter for their presence to interrupt.
The girl’s cheeks form deep pits from pulling on her straw; Zayn’s attention is drawn to her like the blue sludge suctioning through it. Her indifferent stare meanders as if hypnotized, rolling over blank points in space like the languid Slushie mixers swirling in the back of the store. While her father’s bored eyes drift like disposed milk jugs in the sea, his hands fidget impulsively: he jingles the keys in his pocket with one hand – at the same time, hitching his jeans from sagging down—and taps his Bic lighter rapidly against his thigh with his other hand with the veracity of a jazz drummer who’s either consumed too many stimulants, or is nearing withdrawal. Fixated on their treats, the mother and child appear deaf to the anxious timbre.
The father produces the cash and the exact change for a pack of Pall Malls from his pocket containing the keys – the crash cymbals in his handheld drum set. As if impatience is contagious, Zayn whomps the side of his water container against his leg, eager to check-off this painful errand. The sickness in his stomach from secondhand consumption is the byproduct of life as an acutely sensitive person, an empath. He tells himself that these are the lost people he’s fighting for, the lives that can still be awakened, saved.
He’s half a step to the counter as his turn arrives when the little girl’s grip on her styrofoam cup slips, popping the lid loose and spilling blue slush over the exposed edge. Her father jolts to life, grasping the cup from her like a bomb about to detonate. Her mother springs around for something to wipe the droplets off the dingy tiled floor but the gaunt, pony-tailed clerk beats her to it, rolling a brown paper towel roll across the counter with unfazed eyes. The father scolds the little girl under a hushed breath as he kicks at the oil spill with a towelette under his sneaker. Zen-like, she observes him from over her bare protruding tummy, sucking at the blue dots on the front of her shirttail.
When it’s his turn, the clerk shoots him a look that says, “What do you want, asshole?”
Struck by the reality that he hasn’t calculated the cost to fill his beloved container with gas, Zayn blurts out, “Um, yeah, I need some gas. Here, to fill this.”
The clerk glances at the 3 gallon indicator on its side and punches keys on the register.
“$21.89.”
Crickets.
Lifting the container closer. “Are you sure? For only this much?”
The clerk huffs and shrugs his shoulders like, What can I say?
Dumbfounded, Zayn considers the insanity of the outrageous price of something that does nothing but harm the environment. The person in line behind him coughs raspily, the hot mucus air pressuring him to make a decision.
Fumbling through his burlap fanny pack, he sets the container on the ground and tips it over with a shaky hand, revealing an array of stickers on its side – souvenirs collected during his travels, mostly decals of national parks. Stretched like a banner across the top of the images is a bold-lettered statement: NOT ALL WHO WANDER are LOST. The words are lost on him. He recognizes that he’s no longer wandering, simply lost. Although his plan demands compromise, the act of feeding the beast he’s targeting is overkill.
He leaves without a word to the clerk, who reciprocates the gesture. The bell above the door is still jingling as he trots by a row of pumps, hopping over the grease stains splotched along the pavement. He cannot believe he almost destroyed the canister whose plastic composition he’d forgiven long ago, rationalizing it as better off in his hands than buried in a landfill.
The mixture of pride and purpose he feels now is euphoric, like the moment of clarity he’s encountered on the coattails of profound psychedelic experiences. He wonders to himself if the population of spiritually lost sugar and nicotine addicts sadly experience a similar endorphinic effect during a binge.
And it’s in the midst of this sharp luminous state that a shiny object appears, lying directly in his path. A silver Bic lighter, the same as the one the father paddled his leg with. Zayn surmises that he dropped it while hoisting his pants up and handling the messy Slushie as he rushed his wife and sticky daughter to catch the bus.
Slipping it into his pocket, he heads to his bike which is dwarfed by the dinosaur like a clown straddling a strider. He drops the empty canister into the wooden vegetable crate strapped over the rear fender with a hollow thud and settles onto the leather saddle, one leg extended as a kickstand. With the toe of his Birkenstock, he spins the pedal and contemplates his mission, revolving the same tired thoughts round and round. Did the protesters during the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia confront the same barriers? They must’ve had their doubts/fears. Or are some causes easier to commit to, such as the Buddhist monks who protested religious persecution inflicted by the Vietnamese government in the ‘60s?
Imagining the pain he would endure pales to the misery of going through life as just another talker, a propagator of half-ass ideas that peter out like the faded applause after a moving TED Talk concludes and another conscious-shifting lesson commences before bleeding into the next. Philosophical orgies. In his view, grand ideas to change the world, while ripe in their essence and invigorating to chew on, avoid digestion because they are dished out to a population either too dull or too distracted to swallow them. His fiery message to the world, however, differs in that he’s willing to devote everything to it.
By now the late morning heat has intensified, softening the black tar between the cracks in the sidewalk underneath his tires. It takes only a few pedal cranks to gain speed, sending him plummeting down a steep grade. With the Sinclair long behind him, he shifts into high gear and juts his long spindly neck forward like a pterodactyl, letting the rush of cool air wash the stench of the gas station hiccup from his thick flowing hair.
He’s satisfied knowing that although he hasn’t yet attained the fuel, he has inadvertently acquired an igniter – which, after its divine delivery, rests comfortably in his pocket.
Spring blossoms along the grassy median dividing the one-way sides of Cherry St., sandwiched between speeding cars. The unseasonable warmth accelerates life: crazed drivers veer lanes like ballistic hummingbirds; children shout at each other from their driveways; landscapers hustle from yard to yard, hopeful that the next is shadier than the last.
An expertly-manicured backyard is tucked away from the bustling action. It’s a private oasis replete with vegetable plots and rock gardens sprouting clear quartz and stained-glass figurines that refract the harsh sun rays into dazzling dancing colors across the grass. Bamboo chimes play soft tunes in the faint breeze. Butted against the tall fence at the far end of the grounds is a quaint cottage. On either side of the entrance are two Dogwoods whose explosive white florets have cloaked the stone walkway that snakes through the yard. The stone path leads to the three-story main house (a.k.a. the Mothership) opposite to the cottage, connecting to the large patio covered with cushions absent of furniture. Overhead is a retractable awning which allows the eight occupants of the property to bask in the morning sunshine while they meditate in a circle, and lounge in the afternoon shade while they chat about their perceptions of the universe – how all beings are extensions of it, how we are left to explore what that means for ourselves. The Mothership household offers to ease this daunting challenge by filtering out distractions. Its group dynamics aid the journey by sharing a depth of open-mindedness that’s morphed into more of a sinkhole of closed-off perspectives after few to zero aberrant outside opinions have infiltrated their way into the reclusive compound.
In the evenings, the tight-knit community’s revelry spills over the fence, prompting a neighboring family’s fascination, sometimes in the form of the occasional peep through cracks between the slats. One nosy neighbor, a retired art teacher turned wino, refers snidely to the angelic yard as “The Garden of Earthly Delights.”
The splendid mixed greens harvested from underneath their bare feet are the celebrated key to unlocking a prosperous body and mind, they preach incessantly. Chief among the community’s tapestry of eastern and neo-New Age beliefs is an unshakeable commitment to the earth, to sustaining her health as vigorously as their own. Sex is a prominent thread weaving through the fabric as well, stitching unexplainable or barely visible differences between each other together. Loose partnerships shift with the seasons, sometimes depending on the lunar cycles. Malice toward a lost lover is a weed that never grows; group therapy is a magnifying glass that zaps it to dust in the light of open communication and wanton compassion.
Returning to the Mothership after a restorative yoga class in town this afternoon, is Whitney. In the spirit of rebirth, the rest of the housemates embarked on adventures they’d planned together or separately over the winter, leaving the whole place to her and Zayn. She stayed home to tend the gardens and look after the place; he stayed back for unspecified reasons. He assured everyone that he was feeling fine after a fitful episode during the last group council session. And because of the overwhelming trust established between them, they believed him.
Zayn’s overturned bike lies on the garage floor, tripping Whitney up. She sticks it right-side-up in the rack next to hers. He’s usually not so careless, so she inspects the room for other anomalies, finding none. Since waking at dawn in the empty Mothership and knocking on the cottage door to welcome Zayn to meditate with her and discovering that he’d already left, this is the first sign of him she’d seen before now as she heads inside and peers out the back kitchen window, noticing that the cottage’s front door is ajar, inviting a trail of white petals to blow inside…
He’d left the scene in a panic. The shocking consequences happened too fast to react differently. How stupid of him to leave evidence behind let alone blatantly “borrow” without permission. He shakes his head, repeating his sin like a mantra to himself while hunching over the toilet, trying to regurgitate. Lacking sustenance after skipping breakfast, his dry heaves release only plumes of the deathly odor, a caustic vapor that burns his mouth, gagging him further. Between bouts at the toilet, he rotates to the sink to rinse, gargle, repeat. Over the sound of running water, he hears the creaky front door and Whitney’s voice. “Zayn? Are you alright?”
“Yes. Fine,” he blurted, closing the bathroom door and barricading the bottom with a towel.
“Really. You sound ill.”
Improvising. “Bad sushi.”
“Huh? You didn’t eat fish, did you?” she asked, her tone equal parts tender and persecuting.
“Yes,” he lied, to throw her off the scent, careful not to exhale his literal putrid one at the door.
“Honey, we should have talked before you’d do something like that. If not as a group, then at least with me. We all agreed that we wouldn’t support horrible fishing practices.”
Honey. That’s right, they’d been together. But since he slipped further into despair, he’d nipped the closeness in the bud. The relationship was fluid; most of the time they returned to their separate beds in separate houses. Looking at his yellowish reflection now he recalls the midnight walk back to his cottage after their first hookup, how he’d studied his empty expression in the mirror before tossing sleeplessly in his bed. The satisfaction he thought their romping would spark fell short of expectation. As the window for carnal opportunities gradually closed onto his flaccid manhood, his zest for them seemed to wane accordingly. He sensed that his body was preparing for the agony ahead, resisting pleasure as an invasive weakness. Furthermore, his secret plan ate at him, nibbling off pieces of his heart he couldn’t share with Whitney because he knew she wouldn’t understand.
“I know I know. I fucked up by not bringing it to you. The sneaky sense of a deficiency beat me in a moment of weakness. When everybody’s back, I’ll bring it to the circle.”
“Is there something I can do? Want some ginger tea or peppermint oil?”
“Thank you, yes.” He did, in fact. Anything to drown down this hell.
“Okay, I’ll leave it outside for whenever you’re ready. I’m sorry you feel this way.”
He sighs into a wadded hand towel, using it to sponge the inside of his mouth as he cracks the door open, making sure the coast is clear. Squeezing a glob of animal cruelty-free toothpaste into his mouth on the go, he slips out the back window that opens to a walled off vista. Chipmunk-cheeked, he high-steps through the tight gap between the cottage and the fence. Wild undergrowth blocks his way, hiding the object he fortunately had the wherewithal to stash.
Near the corner of the cottage where it meets the yard is the yellow nozzle of a gas can rising above the greenery like a swan. The painful acknowledgment of how he’d bent his morals to obtain it is matched by the harsh punishment he received for stealing it…
Earlier, on his aimless ride from the Sinclair, he had realized his only option to fulfill his need for a flammable substance without purchasing it or its vessel was to find it already on the streets. So as soon as he spotted an unwatched jerrycan in the shed at a neighbor’s house, he pounced, but was sorely disappointed, finding it almost empty. Checking the zero-turn mower next to it, he discovered that its tank was brimming with hazy blue-gray fluid. Jackpot.
He located shears hanging from a peg board and a cracked water hose coiled in a dusty corner of the shed fenced off by cob webs. He snipped a few feet of the hose and stuck one end into the tank. As if the brain cells responsible for surviving died upon fume exposure, he plugged his mouth with the tube and sucked. The cool rush was numbing and bland for a second before turning acidic beyond anything he’d ever tasted. He pictured rattlesnake venom progressing the same way: a sassy love bite that advances into a razor-tongued Frenchy throughout the entire body. Like a busted sprinkler head, he spewed gas from his lips all over the shed until his scorched mouth turned blood-red. After several cups of it had run down his hands and onto the floor, he stabbed the floppy geyser into the can’s opening. Wiping his mouth out with his shirt, he recalled the little girl with her shirttail in her mouth, savoring the precious remnants of spilt Slushie.
The siphon lost steam like an enlarged prostate, dribbling only a few ounces into the can. After swallowing a shot stronger than Everclear, there was zero chance he would try again. He felt that he was slowly dying and needed to flee lest be caught and found incapable of explaining himself with ravaged vocal cords, so he abandoned the entire mess, regrettably.
His burning eyes battled against him; he struggled to maintain his alignment on the road like a child fresh off training wheels. Humiliation and illness may have been the final stick in his spokes had it not been for another divine mirage appearing through the haze that caused him to ride slow enough to notice in the first place. A gas can rested next to a giant shrub like a behind-the-scenes snapshot from the Old Testament: Moses’s bush before God had used the can to set fire to it.
A weed-eater zipped and thwacked from the backyard, out of sight, so Zayn, doing his best to appear casual, strolled over to the can, his mouth now slobbering uncontrollably, and grabbed it nonchalantly as if he’d forgotten it there, leaving a puddle of rainbow-hued saliva in its place.
Back at the cottage, he hears her voice from inside the Mothership. Whitney was talking on the phone. Crouched next to the ferns lining the wall, he lets the toothpaste and dead skin Slushie pour from his raw mouth onto the grass. As soon as Whitney’s voice fades deeper into the house, he figures she won’t spot him sneaking around the side of the garage to retrieve his bicycle.
In addition to the stomach full of knives and having dry bloodshot eyes, balancing a top-heavy rear end slows his progress. The sloshy container makes the ground feel like he’s riding on a waterbed – the handlebars jostle, fighting to free themselves from his grip. After covering several blocks, he takes the opportunity to rest in the shade of a titanic oak in the middle of a park a mile away from the downtown BP headquarters. His target.
Once his bike and hazardous cargo are properly secured next to the trunk, he collapses onto the lush grass, wheezing like he’d just finished an Ironman triathlon. Staring up through the serrated leaves at the cobalt sky, his mind drifts to the pending text message in his pocket, the one he’ll send to his family at the Mothership when the end is near.
Fishing his phone out, he pauses before awakening his screen, sensing a painful longing he hasn’t felt the entire day, perhaps not even in his adult life. The urge to embrace Whitney and the rest of the group, to tell them in-person how much they mean to him, how appreciated their love and acceptance of him is, overwhelms him. He begins to sob the first significant tears for the pain others would feel outside of his own. After damming the stream with the back of his toxic-smelling wrist, draining the pools of liquid from his eyelids, he summons the focus to review the message – his T9-ed manifesto (as a shunner of smartphones and the conflict minerals that composite them, Zayn opts to carry on the legacy of the Motorola flip phone) – one last time:
Greetings, friends!
It delights me to inform you guys that I am fine and that what I have done to myself was a gesture of good will to you, and to the rest of the world. May future generations be alerted of my sacrifice (I trust that you all will promise to pass this message on to them).
As our circle has undoubtedly heard me rant about numerous times, I have grown to not only loathe the petroleum industry’s mission to destroy the world, I’ve become crippled by the reality that nothing drastic is being done to stop it. I’ve choked on the combustion of lies fomenting from progressives in D.C. long enough. Something has to be done and it must be demonstrated peacefully but loudly, if not by those with power and resources, then by someone who has none – making the act all the bolder.
Public self-immolation is a noble action dating back centuries, a method of attracting attention to the misery an institution causes. The blaze inflicted to oneself is a representation of harmful injustices happening to marginalized groups, which is every living thing today. I think a vast swathe of the population is inundated by climate change warnings to the point of being desensitized.
Forget about the burning of fossil fuels, the entire existence of a culture preoccupied with transitory pleasures – stuffing themselves with single serving treats housed in non-reusable plastic containers – is clogging the planet’s arteries. We’ve discussed this ad nauseam as a group, which is part of the issue: being aware of the problem and taking baby steps to mitigate it on a micro level is no longer enough. I want to accomplish something for the greater good using all I have, which is my “single serving” of life. My container is organic, which I proudly return to the universe.
Dearly loved ones, the simple lifestyle you have shared with me has been the nutritious soil I have cultivated my love of Mother Earth upon. Please carry on the sacred tradition of living clean and respectful of nature without me.
The world stands to benefit from what you have to offer it by continuing what you’ve shown me, which I thank you for from the bottom of my heart.
Passionately yours and the world’s forever,
Zayn.
He drops the phone onto his heaving chest without pressing Send. He wishes he could lie under this beautiful tree forever, beholding its pure green essence and watering its roots with his appreciative tears for life at this precious moment.
The message’s upbeat tone feels alien. He still agrees that something must be done in order to salvage the earth’s free fall path to destruction, but the cavalier voice sounds displaced like came from somebody else – somebody who stands at a safe distance from the edge of a cliff, able to warn about it intelligibly, whereas he is toeing the bluff, too paralyzed to utter a sound beyond a whimper for nobody to hear. From his current vantage point, he’s closer to catastrophic destruction than the earth is. His imminent death feels more real than anything now or ever.
Atop his soft bed of grass, he breaks into a nervous sweat – his fear ignited under the scorching heat of what’s to come.
Bleary-eyed, Zayn rises like a sunflower at dawn, confused to be alive. Waking to a brighter-looking world, the shade of the leafy canopy has migrated, revealing the hot sun beating against one side of his body.
He dreamt that he followed through with the plan. At the moment the imaginary flames engulfed him, he confirmed what he’d long suspected but buried under cushy layers of idealism: that he wasn’t stoic enough to withstand the agony; that he lacked the conviction and courage expressed by past self-immolators; and, that in the end his piddly fireworks didn’t incite the explosive reaction he’d hoped they would: his ember glowed like a futile S.O.S. flare attempt that raised awareness to the tragic equivalent of a cigarette burn scar on an ash-gray carpet. He saw that his death was misunderstood by many and mocked by some, and enshrined temporarily as a smoldering news headline snuffed out by shinier hot-off-the-press stories of the moment.
Now he wonders: Isn’t there enough death and misery in the world without my contribution to it? Also, how much misery is self-imposed, i.e., how many of us let our obsession over unfortunate truths burn us alive?
At this point his declining health as a result of the botched gas siphoning episode and his mental anguish inclines him to just get it over with. He desires an end to it all, one way or another.
In a perverted effort to restore some of the clear-headed confidence, Zayn, frustrated with his thoughts hijacking his thoughts, unscrews the nozzle off the canister, and takes a long whiff. The foulness erupts all of his senses, emitting a nauseating highness in its wake.
He staggers and braces himself against the tree. The initial effect fades in seconds but a hangover settles into the hole it left behind like lead soup. Although physically miserable, he’s successfully disrupted his spiraling thoughts enough to slip out of their grasp.
The BP headquarters is not far.
After managing to lug the jug onto his bicycle, he guides the handlebars while on foot through the grass. When he reaches the sidewalk, he’s almost too clumsy to swing his leg over the seat. For several yards, he keeps one foot on a pedal while propelling himself over the ground with the other, skateboard style. And once enough momentum is built up, the problems begin. He simply cannot keep the bike on a straight course. Veering uncontrollably, he over-corrects off the concrete and down a slope into a litter-filled ditch a hundred yards from where he began.
As the front tire collides with the bottom of the embankment, the added weight on the caboose shoots the bike out from his undercarriage, flipping on top of him. Half a front flip later, he’s on his back, pinned by the wreckage.
He wails.
His naked cranium narrowly avoided the impact and somehow recharged itself on adrenaline on the way down, shocking his will-to-live glands back to life as the sensation of cold, burning fluid creeps down his mangled legs. He rams his feet upward, banging his bruised shins against the frame. Too weak to shove it off and escape the outpouring of gas, instincts take over: he rolls onto his chest and wiggles to freedom like an earthworm.
From the lip of the ditch, he watches the overturned container gurgle gas from its loose cap. His soaked pants are ripped at the knees, exposing scrapes searing from the chemical shower.
A mud puddle expands around the gas can, darkening the dusty earth. He remains seated, entranced by the pollution and as the sides of the plastic container pulse between gulps of air displacing the liquid. Unable to rush to its aid, he scoots down the incline and tips it right-side-up with his foot. The swaying line indicating the depth shows that half of the volume was expelled.
He chuckles, throwing spasms through his beat-up body. With so many shit storms weathered in a single day, there’s nothing else to say or do, at least while he surveys the damage. His palms are pink, skinless patches from dragging his battered body across the rocky ditch with. He’ll never need another hit from the can: his clothes sponged a thousand huff’s worth. Next to his heap of a bicycle is his flipped open phone, its screen smashed after falling out of his pocket. His message to the world is forever pending, diffused into cyberspace. Also lost among the weeds and rubble is his silver Bic. Even if he desired to ignite himself right here in this ditch, incinerating the roadside trash and his warped-to-shit bicycle with him, he couldn’t.
The chuckling turns into quaking laughs which then turn into silent sobs. He sways back and forth with his arms clasping his midsection like a mother soothing a newborn who won’t stop crying. His utter failure to complete something as simple as killing himself in the most horrific way imaginable is embarrassing enough to merit killing himself over. This awful admission strikes him as a conundrum not unlike another one he’s wrestled with for years: the desire to not desire so much.
He’s fought internally over the carefree existence at the Mothership since day one. Unlimited time spent correcting the inadequacies of strangers while trying to pretend that they don’t exist beyond the comfort of paradise, is perhaps the folly that dug him into this ditch, the lowest point in his life. Perhaps his breaking point was the subconscious realization that he desired to help people, desired it so acutely that he slipped into depression for not acting on it instead of plugging away at the unending journey of spiritual development in a house of mirrors.
He studies the gas can. He almost limps out of the ditch without it, but changes his mind, regarding culpability as a lifelong virtue. Clutching it by the handle, he drags it up the hill and trudges down the sidewalk. As terrible as the gas spill is for the environment, he’s relieved to haul less weight. He’s also glad to be on foot, painful as it is. His dexterity required for cycling is as trashed as the lifeless ditch. But he’s freed himself from it, alive on the other side, and that’s what matters.
Alive alive alive.
Zayn’s adrenaline has evaporated in the cloud of fumes rising off of him. He’s but a scabby, hollow shell of a wound, hobbling down the street, unsure if he’s on the right way home. A toxic marinade penetrates his wounds. His drenched pants chafe his chemical burns, deepening them. The gas that gearheads proclaim runs through their veins is literally coursing through his.
He doesn’t recognize the neighborhood he’s using as a shortcut – its shabbiness exceeds most he’s experienced in the city. Uncut weeds breach through the cracked, slanted sidewalk. Onlookers watch him from their broken latticed porches, indifferently, as though his ragged condition is nothing out of the ordinary.
An ass-naked child gallops through a garbage-strewn front yard, chased by older kids, all of whom are unattended by an adult. The house behind them is missing most of its shingles and the paint is faded and chipped so badly that it’s hard to ascertain the original color. A moldy wooden sign next to the barred-off front door says, Home Is Where the Heart Is.
A thunderous BOOM! rattles the dilapidated neighborhood. The shockwave flops him to the ground. Nose to the hot pavement, he waits for more shots, for runaway bullets to whiz by.
But giggling is all he hears. Lifting his weary head, he realizes it was just the sound of a car backfire. From a tree draped with unpruned broken limbs, children peer through the foliage at him like territorial squirrels. Standing in the yard, the naked boy furrows his brow and gawks at Zayn as if he’s the strange one.
He collects himself off the ground, leaving a wet imprint, and tries to ignore the curious beady eyes tracing him. His erratic heartbeat is still thumping through his blood and gas-stained shirt by the time he approaches a squatty, semi-kempt brown bungalow seated on a shady, uncluttered corner lot. Rows of freshly-cut grass mounds form rows across a mostly mowed yard before coming to an abrupt end at the site of a motorless reel lawn mower, which appears to have been abandoned after an immense effort took place. Its helixed blades are bogged down in thick grass and caked in wet clippings.
In the driveway facing the street is a beige Astro Van with its hood propped open. A dark brown-skinned man in his forties emerges from the garage carrying a spray can in one hand and a red rag in the other. He gives Zayn a tired but earnest nod as he leans over the engine. After spraying several jets of the starter fluid into his carburetor, he slams the hood closed and speedwalks to the driver side and reaches in to turn the ignition.
It sputters and comes to life while the man has one leg dangling out of the open door, which he retracts as the van lumbers down the driveway. Zayn steps aside to allow room for the van to access the street and stumbles over the curb, landing on a hand and knee. As the two buckle, spilling him to the ground, he sits upright but unable to lift himself to his feet.
The van’s bald tires squeal against the pavement.
“Are you alright, sir?” the man said.
Zayn musters a nod without looking in the direction of the voice.
Opening his door. “Are you sure? Ugh, what’s that on your clothes? Advika!,” the man shouted to the jet-black haired woman in the passenger seat. His accent is thick and hard to place.
“I just need help getting up. Please.”
Advika circles around the rear of the van, her hands cupping a baby wrapped to her chest with a scarf-like cloth. She shifts her concern for Zayn to the backseat, where twin toddlers cry out from their car seats.
Offering a motor oil-blemished hand. “Yes, yes. Of course.” The man hoists Zayn to his feet, hovering a hand over his shoulder to ensure he doesn’t fall.
Locking his knee to keep it from buckling, Zayn says, “Thank you. I had an accident. I’m lost now.” He wipes his face, smearing dirt and grease. His eyes swell as he gazes through the man, feeling sorry for himself like an alcoholic who has fallen off the wagon.
“I am Mukesh. We can help. Where are you going, sir?”
“I-I-I need to get home. The Mothership. It’s on Cherry Street, I-I think.”
The van shakes and suddenly dies. “Bakavaas,” Mukesh muttered, exasperated. Advika reacts gravely from over her shoulder before switching to a reassuring expression. Her husband responds with a labored grin. Advika’s calm, sunny-side attitude has quieted the twins, who wait patiently in their seats, gumming on their pacifiers.
Zayn points to the muddy gas can at their feet. “Here. Take this, if it helps.”
The couple look at each other as if unaccustomed to accepting favors. “Oh, yes. Thank you. It does help very much, thank you.” Mukesh picks up the container from its bottom, cradling it like a precious object.
“The price is so much,” shaking his head, “I have to work hard. I try to use less, but it’s hard.” He nods to the motorless mower while he inserts the gas spout into the van’s tank.
Zayn’s blurry image of the man bobs up and down. He blinks repeatedly to hold him still, which works for only seconds at a time before Mukesh resumes rising like a vapor.
Advika reenters the murky picture, holding a blue bottle of Gatorade out to Zayn. He didn’t realize that she’d gone inside for it. She smiles and says, “We thank you. You are a rare sight, a gift from above. We drive you home.” Mukesh agrees emphatically, tipping the container high in the air, draining every drop from it into the stalled van. “Yes, we are happy to rideshare once the car starts.”
He downs the sweet electrolytes into his aching stomach, never more grateful for a plastic bottle in his life. But it arrived too late.
He crumples onto the yard. His ears ring like fire station bells. Harsh lights strobe from his periphery.
The dizzying spins eventually slow, releasing him into a warm void – a billowy darkness that swallows the image of the nice couple standing over him. He surrenders to it.
He can rest, finally, without desiring not to desire.