~fiction, short story~

the first thing is the sound of a car approaching at highway speed.

I open my eyes, the world is horizontal. A close-up view of a broken and worn white paint stripe. Gravel and asphalt. The car is a blur of blue and chrome as it speeds by, and it kicks up cubes of broken safety glass on the highway. The wind draft of its speed passes over my face.

This can't be good. How did I get here?

I can feel the sun on the left of my face, the earth on the right. I am to hot and to cold at the same time. I am not thinking straight. How did I get here? What kind of shape am I in? Am I just a head on the side of this highway? Scores of other unpleasant thoughts pass through me.

Another car approaches, but this one stops. Doors open and people get out, I hear something said like “my god…”  I have to get up. I try. Nothing happens.

But I can feel the shape of the desire to get up, and desire is not there yet.

And just like that, it’s easy to know; every time I have tried to move something, to do something, there is the mechanical connection of muscle and nerves, and there is the desire to have it done. Everything. Every motion. Maybe even the beat of my heart.

If I could just get a handle on that, the desire to get up, off this highway, out of this… bad predicament...

But the desire won’t budge.

I lie there, thinking of the thing I could feel the shape of so clearly.

desire

Is it my job to move it? Or it’s job to move me?