The Roads We Take
by Sheri Grutz
Randall took his
time with his students, worked over each poem like a mathematical
equation, adding something, taking something away, the words
themselves could have been numbers that reach a highest proportion of
value. The leaves had long since fallen, and the look outside from
the single window was overcast and cold, making him think of his old
days playing high school football. Soon there would be snow, and a
long period of darkness, something Tom wrote about, how did he say
it, Darkness dares to be pink before yellow.
Nancy had long
commutes to her job, and always took the interstate, but she wished
there was rail to get her there, something they had been talking
about for years, but the funding never came through. She worked as
an educational instructor for new and returning teachers, products
and methods they weren't taught in college, all new, and innovative.
She loved her job, and was a great public speaker. She was starting
to think about moving to this college town, but her kids were still
in high school, and it wouldn't be fair.
Randall wore his
generation like a badge of courage, many issues facing them were
equal rights, civil rights, war, and drugs. He had been pushlished
in several anthologies which told him he may have finally come into
his own. The teaching though, that was something he loved, but it
took away something that he couldn't quite put his finger on. There
had been days like this he was starting to notice, where he felt a
deep pit of despair inside, a real holding back from his bright mind.
He knew he should swear off liquor, but he used it mainly to sleep
at night.
On that late fall
day, Randall walked home and read a few letters coming in from
friends or family members who had lost someone in the war. He was
beside himself to be known as a peaceful, deep thinking poet with
nothing to offer but condolenses. Randall turned on classical music,
made an early tottie, and fixed a light meal on the range. It was
starting to get dark. Some kind of ghost seized him then, it took
him by the shoulders, and led him on a long, precarious walk around
town. He walked and he walked. He walked until he got out to the
edge of town, kept going out near the interstate, and did not pause,
the ghost holding up his head and shoulders like a sack of grain,
walked right through the ditch, onto the interstate and was instantly
struck by Nancy's car.
Nancy had been
coming home from work, and she screamed loud, and then slammed on the
brakes, but not in time, Randall flew straight over the top of her
car, and rolled and skidding across the pavement and onto the
shoulder of the road. She pulled over immediately and put her
hazards on, and walked several yards back to see who or what she hit.
His body was gnarled, and face punctured and bloody, he was dead.
Nancy flagged down a
semi, and he pulled over right in front of her car. He got out and
walked up to where Nancy and the body were. “Did you have an
accident?” he asked her. “No,” she was crying, “this
man....this man right here, he walked out in front of my car.”
“Oh, suicide, then.” he told her. “But tell me I haven't
killed a homeless man,” she begged him. The man rummaged around
the dead body, and couldn't believe the wallet was still intact. He
opened it and saw the dead man's name, then said to her, “No.
You've killed a poet.”
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