The drive back was so dark. Through the swampy woods driving back north, up that spindly road with its spindly yellow line, I clutched so hard at the steering wheel and let everyone pass me. And gradually, another feeling overtook that one. I felt so alive as I drove up to the garish fluorescence and McDonalds and ordered a cheeseburger and fries. So grateful for my own agency and for the dollar bills in my own wallet and for the hunger in my gut, and for my ability to chomp down the flavor and texture that that corporation has tricked my body into associating, elementally, with my own childhood.
But what does it mean, that entering a house of death and then leaving it again should renew one’s own zest for living? How cheap? Because I had called the girl’s mother and asked to come over. And I left, feeling the proximity of all of us to the edge; blade-sharp fear, and the night full of black and forest sounds felt bigger, maybe, than some witless Me could handle. Until the rotting, living smell of that river air, which, coming up and through the windows as the car scaled the slope up to the bridge hit me like a gift, because the girl had been denied just that, that night, and here I was, experiencing it, and felt close to tears for that reason but also, shamefully this, superior. Like I’d done something right and so been chosen. Which is not true. I'll have my own day. But I feel like I’ve stolen her fire. I was dull and unable to smile for weeks before that night, and I’ve been unable to stop, since.