Zazen - By Vanessa Veselka Page 0,10

caught in the center of some big horrible thing you have no control over, that you can’t even feel the edges of, a slideshow of species trauma.

I looked up the number of the sports bar and called in a bomb threat. I don’t even know where the idea came from. When the bartender answered I told him they were all going to die in multiple explosions during the fourth quarter. Then I went and looked through the windows to see what would happen, but nothing did. They were pink and bored. The bartender finished a crossword puzzle. One guy near the TV yelled when a ball switched hands and slammed his fist down on the table knocking off a red plastic ashtray, which rattled in circles on its rim then stopped. They are untouchable.

I waited a little while then called Jimmy. I asked her to pick me up because I didn’t want to call Annette. She showed up in her truck. I got in and put the box of fortunes between us on the seat.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

Sure. I love watching the ship timbers wash ashore in the tide.

“I’m tired.”

We pulled out into traffic and sat there with the windows down and water coming in everywhere because the defrost doesn’t work and the windows fog up. Everyone was going under forty because it was rush hour and the rain was so hard. She turned on the radio and dialed it to a Mexican station but the engine hum cancelled out everything but the brass. Half a conversation. The trumpets were answering something inaudible. We didn’t talk until we got out on the freeway.

Mirror had told me Jimmy was leaving. I think Credence said something about it too but I had put it out of my mind.

“I got my ticket today,” Jimmy said.

“Costa Rica?”

“No, Honduras.”

Cars sped up and fanned as a newly built fifth lane appeared on the left shoulder for half a mile then disappeared and drove us all back together.

“I got you a fan,” I said. “As a going away gift.”

Another pool of light.

“Yeah,” Jimmy rolled the window up some, “I’m about done with all of this.”

The traffic slowed near a huge billboard made of lights. It had a truck on it that spun in a circle and then exploded into yellow stars. Every time it happened Jimmy’s face lit up and the fine brown hairs on top of her head turned gold. She looked like she had an aura and I thought, maybe that’s how people see them. Maybe you have to know someone really well to see those things.

“It has a cherry tree on it,” I said.

“What has?”

“The fan I got you. It’s all white with a black cherry tree on it. I think it’s winter. There aren’t any blossoms.”

Another burst of the billboard lights and Jimmy’s hair was gold again. Even her eyelashes, when she turned her head, sparked then blackened. The traffic thinned and we started to move. The windows were still down far enough that the rain stung my cheeks as we picked up speed. She reached across and wiped fog from the windshield with her forearm and everything became clear. I didn’t know it wasn’t until she wiped it away and then it was so sharp it seemed ridiculous. Through the glass where the arc of Jimmy’s arm had stopped and under the canopy of fog I saw a river of dark shadows glinting dully off each other. Steel and taillights poured into the valley then splashed up over the edge of a distant rise.

“Maybe I’ll get a ticket too,” I said.

A passing neon sign splashed vermillion on Jimmy’s cheek. Again, I saw Grace, my mother, back before her hair turned dark and her eyes crawled the world like spiders. Suddenly, I got the idea that I wanted Jimmy to think about me when she was gone. I wanted her to say my name. I reached over and touched her face. She twitched so I pulled my hand back.

“What are you doing?”

“If it’s not okay I won’t.”

She looked at me then back at the road. Cars coasted like blackbodies cooling in a sea of brakelights.

“Well,” she said after a minute, “I guess it’s okay. Just strange.”

I touched her face again. I thought about telling Credence and how he would think it was funny. But it wasn’t. Not really. It was as fucked up as everything else. Now? Is that too hard? No, it doesn’t hurt. It’s all about the breathing. It’s about