by Kody Hackbusch

Created on: April 05, 2010

Open Road 

Jack felt good.  His hair whipped in and out of the cracked window.  The radio crackled struggling to grab on to any signal it could find floating in the ether, the sun set behind desert hills.  Jack and his 1984 Buick hummed across the asphalt at a steady seventy five mile per hour pace.  Jack pushed his shoulders back until he felt a good stretch.  His eyes kept to the road but his hands began to fumble about in search of a cigarette.  After tossing two empty packs of Marlboros and a long since empty can of soda in the back, Jack found his last cigarette rolling back and forth in the crease of the passenger seat.  He placed it between his lips and gave the car lighter a push.  A quick glance in the rear view revealed a few headlights in the distance.  With a pop, the lighter shouted to Jack that it was ready.  He pulled it out of the socket, the cigarette filter beginning to stick to his lip, stone cold. 

“What the fuh…ugh” Jack slid the lighter back into the socket and gave it another forceful push with his thumb.   He rolled down the window by manual crank, air rushed in instantly cooling him and after a few more moments, pop.  His two fingers gripped the lighter and tilted it so he could see if the cherry was hot.   Again, completely cold, he put his finger on it just to be sure. 

“Gotta have a damn lighter in here somewhere” he said aloud to himself.  His words were swept out the window as soon as they came out of this mouth.  A glance in the rearview a few tiny headlights, then a glance at the speedometer, seventy seven.   

            Once the sun goes down it doesn’t take long for it to get dark.   Jack never did find a lighter and finally tossed the smoke right back over to the passenger seat.  He had grown tired of the crackling radio and shut it off, now it was just Jack and the open road.   Time passed, Jack kept a steady eye on the road and a heavy boot against the accelerator.  The dashes of road paint zoomed below his car and disappeared.  He glanced beyond the road to the east, darkness, sage, dirt.  Not much more to the west.  

            “Holy Shit!”  The old Buick went right off the road blasting through a reflective

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