J.J. Pugh never wanted you to know. That’s why he disappeared. He didn’t care to be missed. Didn’t matter. What really mattered is that the ripples he left behind dissipate as quick as possible, any memories of him expunged from theirs. J.J. was through.
Not that it takes that long. Out of sight out of mind, and JJ was gone before he knew it. They didn’t care. No one went looking. No one wondered. No one called his disconnected number. No messages from his past.
He was finally alone and set free from any sense of obligation or responsibility. But it hurt deep.
In a canyon in a desert he screamed his lungs raw, his throat course….for hours…for a night….and still could not expunge the pain. By morning he had awoken facedown to a glorious sunrise, watching lavender shadows draw with the light, ripples of wind, and the hoarse croaking of desert birds, and the smell, like a dry crackle.
Survive the night and face the day. The night will only cool you, but the day will cook you. JJ was in a bunch of Mess. Scorpions danced across the stage in front of him. His head against the sand, he watched them on the horizontal – the angle of his perspective. They danced like fucking floor show. Close, moving closer, pinchers rising, tails curling. He was a big problem in their lives. JJ could take a hint and split.
It took no effort at all until he got to the highway. Once there, he caught his breath. Walked out to the middle of the deserted desert stretch, looked long at nothing, and wept.
(He was a bit of a weenie, but it was justified. He was fucked.)
Pugh knew he was through unless a vehicle came into view. Fair enough a rationalization, and, wait...yes...even a reality! Or just a hallucination born of desperation? An illusion of disillusion.
He was lost in body, but witness to his own mind for the first time.
He was aware that what mattered to him at this juncture, bore no real effect on everything around him. The vast flat forever. The battered ribbon of an old highway wandering off to nowhere. Himself just a speck. Barely a pixel. Insignificant and indistinguishable as tumbleweed or roadkill.
V
