Drive Home

Short by Bryan Donegan

The highway was crowded and filled with red brake lights. As the cars drove and stopped, again and again, the driver sporting messy hair and and a grey cardigan began punching the soft carpet roof above him. His life was in turmoil, and he wanted out. Not to die, but out of that winter blues. The red lights ahead of him glowed brightly and his face resembled a satanic version of God. Bright eyed, red, and innocent. Filled with sadness and hate and love and prayer. He punched the ceiling again and again. He swerved to the right and then again back into the fast lane to the left. His CD was skipping and the anxiety was killing him slowly.

His father called him.
“Hello.”
“Hey what’s up?”
“Nothing just driving home from the Plaza, you?”
“Just got home…how was work?”
“Good, I think they really liked me.”
“What?”
“I SAID GOOD I THINK THEY LIKED ME, I SHOWED INITIATIVE WHEN-”
“Listen, I can’t hear you, I just got home, I’ll call you later.”
“Okay, love you, bye.”
“Love you too, drive safe.”
The driver, sporting the messy hair and cardigan began to cry. Not for sadness or anger or anything. He cried because he was once again at a point in his life where he was the subject of interrogation. He was not trustworthy, not due to his own faults, but due the universal antipathy against him.

He drove on, and punched his ceiling and cursed, and cried, and decided to waste his mother’s birthday present money on Dewars’s and Pabst Blue Ribbon.