Sagittarius by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Astrology, Zodiac, Horoscope
Publisher: Deadset Press
Published: 2021-12-17T00:00:00+00:00

The Highway

Georgia MacShane

In the stories, the songs, they say flowers grow in the cracks where blood is spilt. All kinds of blood. Every night—once the sun disappears behind those razor-cut mountains and the hitchhikers become silent in their ditches—the animals come out and, on the highway, feast.

Coyotes stalk through the valleys and pass cacti; eagles catch the moon on their wing tips as they descend. Rattlesnakes hiss, slithering beside desert rats. Some in the west claim jackalopes, but others stick to what they can swear they’ve seen. All these creatures feasting on the flowers, ripping them from the crevices, frenzy in their eyes, bellies swollen. Then they fight.

The rest stop was miles in my rear-view mirror, giving comfort with each passing minute. I threw the last cigarette I had stolen out the window and became content.

A rabbit’s head in a coyote’s jaw, a snake wrapping around an eagle, rats turning on each other. Blood spilling on the highway, draining into the asphalt cracks. In the morning, more flowers would grow, only to be crushed by an onslaught of cars, torn by bitter winds, or choked by brittle bush and dandelion root.

They say if you pick them up, your fingers are stained ruby red under your nails, in the lines of your worn palms.

Your eyes, I won’t forget those. Your touch, either. It lingers on my cheek, my neck, my feet. My gaze flickers to the side mirror, along my jaw lies your kiss.

The question is always asked at this point. Why do they fight? Why is it this place? There is no reason, nothing to say to possibly understand these wild, feral laws of nature. The eagle pecks at bodies amongst the rocks, stealing strands of a dead love’s golden hair for a nest. That same eagle will rot on them when it one day drops dead from the sky. Maybe we are born from the earth only to return to it.

The road is stained forever, by animals, teenagers, lovers, gangsters, outlaws. Years ago, but still today.

The young ones sit on stolen suitcases, their weary sneakers on the edge of the road, laces sticking to the melted tar. Dust on their tongues and desperation in their eyes, taking a chance on stained leather seats and tinted windows. Only to be wrapped in plastic to embrace the earth, eyes fixed to heaven, the last scream an echo on their lips. Another to the highway, never to be seen again.

I shivered when I first heard the stories about this place. It hadn’t stopped the pull I felt, how I feel it now as I drive.

Speeding in cars, clouds of vodka coughed into the night air. Everything so fast, so fantastic. Soft spoken crooners on their scratchy radios, then Elvis on cracked cassettes, Tiny Dancer on 8-tracks lined with grease. Laughing and smiling, feeling alive, invincible. Skidding on the smallest oil patch, careening into a cactus with roots that burrow far under the sand. Blood dripping down fingers, into fractures in the road. The cycle continues.

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