I asked the bloated children in the weeds where their mothers were but none responded. I moved from one to the other and they stared without feature. I squeezed and shook them, raising them in the air, waiting for them to scream and cry out but nothing happened. I dropped them in the grass and walked away, disgusted.
There was a tunnel delivering the road through the side of a dark green hill. I checked my pockets for pills.
The tunnel was darker than any darkness experienced, it's silence spoke to the processes under my skin, brought them audible. I raced back to the street.
"Hello!" I yelled, "I don't understand," I said, "Where is the fucking bus!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. I walked down the street, watching the skyscrapers in the distance. I returned to the septic fishing hole with the boy sitting on the pipe.
"Hey," I said to him. He was older than the bloated children in the weeds and he looked at me dubiously and shifted his weight away.
"Kid, hey, look at me," I didn't know what to say. "Where's the bus? I gotta get... downtown." I looked around, downtown didn't mean anything in these modern cities. There were dozens of downtowns. I saw clusters of city centers every few miles. "Kid, you hear me?" I said. He hissed at me and I jumped back.
"There's no fish in there," I said and he spoke, clicking and jawing some horrible language. I reached for him and tossed him in the water.
He slapped the water and made quite a ruckus. I looked to see if anyone was responding. He brought a hand to the edge of the cesspool and I kicked it back and he choked and yelled and I turned again. It was so quiet. Finally, I yanked him up and threw him back on the ground. He coughed and spit and rolled over. With my foot I turned him to his back and said, "Kid, the downtown, the tall, like... buildings." I tried to mime a building with my hands. "Where's your dad work? Papa? Huh? Big bro?" I raised my hand next to me to document his brother's height. It was no use. He stared at me in gurgled mathematics.
I screamed, "YOU LITTLE FUCKER!" I startled myself but continued, threatening him, pressing my foot against his chest, the poor kid, but I was losing it and he was some co-conspirator in this demented nightmare.
Maybe it was a dream... maybe I'd wake up on the bus. I pinched myself, then stepped to the water and splashed it on my face.
It burned! I screamed and jumped back, blinded, it stung and I pulled at my shirt, the buttons flying off and began to desperately rub my face.
I was panting. The kid was gone. I was totally disheveled, my suit jacked lost somewhere, my oxford ripped, clothing hanging down from my necktie. I took that off and tossed it in the cesspool. I wasn't dreaming. I walked across the street and through the alley, looking for the backpacker again. He wasn't where I left him and I listened.
The empty storefront windows infuriated me. I picked up a rock and threw it and the glass cascaded down. I looked down and picked up rock after rock, screaming, the glass smashing down in sheet after sheet as I grunted and moaned like some animal. Reaching for rock after rock and hurling them, my arm and shoulder stinging. Then I was on the ground pulling at my hair and kicking, slapping my feet against the sidewalk and slamming my fists until I was sure I had mashed the bones to pulp.
My teeth were grinding. I sat sobbed. It was so quiet. And the sky was a single monotone. Was this death? the afterlife? an interactive wasteland specifically designed to optimize my plight? Bloated, pious children mocking my wealth? A kid fishing in a cesspool? Was that me as a child fishing in vain in our suburban pond with the water-fountain centerpiece? Cute. And the backpacker? That was my regret? The fun I should and could have had, arriving in the same destination, as if in declaration that it's all a big joke.
"This is lame!" I screamed to the heavens. But lame or not, this was it. I didn't understand but not many of us do. It's hard to acknowledge just how close to that edge we all are.
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