I know somehow, in the deeper, darker parts of my brain, that I didn't actually know this girl. Though I spent the whole night and much of the rest of the week trying to place her in my reality. But she didn't fit. Not from school, not from the neighborhood, not from a foggy childhood memory. But it's been almost a decade now and I can still see her.

This smokey pool hall was a fixture in my life toward the end of my high school experience. It was a watering hole for people my age but much, much cooler than me. I'm really not sure how I managed to come and go so casually, stacking quarters on the cracked wood veneer counter top in exchange for a set of pool balls and a chewed up bit of chalk. I couldn't play pool, either. A proper poser in my flannel, hiding next to my best friend with her cigarette balanced delicately between her fingers. She loved anywhere she could smoke inside. It was that kind of place.

We went almost every weekend but this girl - I had never seen her before and I never saw her after. Maybe she was with one of the college-aged guys who ran the place? Maybe she'd just wandered in from the cold. I have no idea. She lingered near the back, by the snack bar and cash register. The first thing I noticed was her size, or rather lack thereof. She was thin not from any sort of dedicated workout routine or healthy lifestyle. Honestly, she had the appearance of someone who'd been through some shit. She perched cross-legged on the bar in her high-top converse and shredded blue jeans. A black hoodie zipped halfway up obscured most of her form and she looked as though at any moment, she could be swallowed up by the thing. I'm not so sure she wasn't trying to do just that. For a while she kept the hood up, darkening her narrow face. Without even realizing it, I was staring quite frequently in her direction. I wanted to talk to her so badly. I can still feel the ache, the sensation that I was being pulled in to some gravitational force surrounding this girl. She had something important to say. Or maybe I did. But I was not that bold. I'm still not that bold.

Finally, she pulled the hood back and out tumbled a mess of blonde, unbrushed hair. As if she could feel my curiosity, she turned in my direction and our eyes collided, only for a second. She smiled ever so slightly. Her deep-set eyes were a striking color, like the downy feathers on the ears of a blue jay. She was beautiful and for some strange reason, I felt like crying for her.

I choked down my fluttering breath and looked away from my friends, laughing to conceal the sudden flooding of my eyes. We left not long after and I rode home quietly, deep in thought about who she was and where she'd come from. Wondering where she was going.

Why, I wonder? How does a perfect stranger stick in the mind like that? I shared a room with her for maybe ten minutes and I don't know her name. A perfectly imperfect stranger caught at a glance from across a stodgy pool room when I was 17. I wonder how different my memory would be now if words had gotten involved. Maybe it's for the best that they did not.

     Sleep doesn't come easily. It presses upon my eyelids in fragile midnight hours then leaps back into darkness when I go to grasp. It comes slowly, trickling over my senses, lulling me into complacency, even as I know that once I succumb, I will be drawn into a place of tremendous terror. 

     My feet drag along scorched black earth, shadows curl around every corner. Shrill laughter echoes off familiar cavern walls and I wonder what nightmare awaits me this time. Door #1? My palm against it is hot. Not fire. Fire was last night. Door #2? I can hear the grinding of metal on metal. No, not tonight. Door #3 calls to me. A metallic twinge settles on my tongue. Why does my curiosity always lead me here? I open the door and step into the darkness.

     I hear cries in voices I love. I run to the sight. A car accident. Mangled flesh wrapped around gnarled steel. I find him. His hand reaches to me. His voice whispers my name. I can see the light in his eyes fading as blood drains from his body. "Don't," I whisper. "Stay." Warm liquid pools at the corners of my eyes as his close.

     "No!" I shout, and I wretched back into reality. He sits up, grabs my hands, laces his fingers through my hair. "The nightmare again?" He whispers, hot and thick in my ear. I lay my head against his shoulder and vow to resist sleep at all cost. 

That made us climb

into the back seat of Ryann’s

coal gray minivan, code named

“The Whale,” and venture down the street.

“The Whale” was on it’s last

leg and we had to lean

forward facing down

the drive to coax the machine

into reluctant life. It spat and

gurgled and slowly woke from its

rusty nap. I hid under the vinyl seat.

Labor day weekend, hiding from the police.

Small town police with nothing

to do on a Saturday afternoon but bust

some gangly girls on an ice-cream run,

for having one too many passengers in a

decrepit minivan (max speed 45). Our parents

would skin us alive so as always,

I was the one to hide.

We cranked the radio up

too loud and laughed too hard at

things that weren’t funny but curbed our

giddy nerves, and we pooled what little

money we had and swerved into the Wal-Mart

parking lot. Aaren waited in the running van for fear

that cutting the engine would leave us stranded.

We bought a gallon of coffee ice-cream

and all four movies in the Final

Destination series, waiting for us in the

Bargain Bin. We paid in change and scanned

the lot for parents and cops, like they were

somehow aware of our cardinal sin. We jumped

back into the van, me under the seat,

and screeched tires on the tired blacktop

cheering our way back to Aaren’s house, a regular

band of small town outlaws.

That night we ate ice-cream floats and had

way too much caffeine and hid our eyes from

the gore on the television screen, periodically

nudging each other, winking and grinning in

celebration of a successful heist. If possible, it

brought us closer, and sitting there, shoulder to

shoulder on a pink bed with the window open,

the summer air pooled around us, filled

us with a strange blend of hope and

fear, because everything had somehow

changed.

It was the perfect crime.

Maybe if we had been caught, things

would be different now, but how

could we forget that first taste,

that life-affirming buzz of freedom on our

tongue, that great awakening of

escape glowing on our face?

We were consumed by it.

Well, they were consumed by it. I just wanted to hide

under that minivan seat, sweating

from the late summer heat with them

every day until I died.

But that’s not the way things go down in

this kind of town.

I remember squinting 

On the front porch in summer,

The bangles on your wrist clattering with your energy

As you illustrated your words with your hands.

Your yellow tank top hurt my eyes and I loved it.

I remember the air

Was so clean and so satisfying

That my lungs felt alive,

Like a hive of bees, buzzing with bright

Boundless determination.

I remember the cool,

Sweet tingle of tea on my tongue,

As we rocked on a splintering swing,

Painted egg-shell yellow some decades ago,

And talked about the weather like it were a life-source.

I remember when we were we,

And all we needed was a sunny day and sweet tea

To feel like we were invincible. 

Wooden boxes rattle down the steel sidewalk

And through frosted glass I see our carved path,

A dark snake with open mouth, sleeping

At the feet of the imperial rock.

No mountain cannot be moved,

I am reminded, as the rail grinder rockets

Toward the stone temple.

I am drawn to the black hole, and it looks

As though we will never fit.

Surely our stacks are too tall.

Surely we will erupt into flames on impact-

Steel and wood and man

Meets stone and wood and God.

This is how it will end.

A smirk creeps across my empty lips

As 560 tons of modern engineering

Races toward it's final destination. 

The crash is already ringing in my ears,

The fire already licking my spine,

I laugh, and then,

Darkness.

My hands fall across my face, my chest, the cavernous

Sanctuary of my persistent heart.

Dim yellow tunnel lights wind their way before us,

And the little wooden boxes rattle onward.