Midnight instead
It’s the same every night. Stand in front of the closed Subway shop that your childhood best friend used to love. She always ordered extra pickles, no mayo. Sometimes, if you responded to the texts about another crappy Tinder date, she'd bring you a peanut butter cookie after work. She used to laugh so hard her ears would leak magenta. Hope one of those dates finally worked out for her. Imagine a ring and swollen belly. Think about trying to order her tuna sandwich.
Turn the corner.
Pause at the broken house with a “For Lease” sign on the corner. It’s dark now, not coated in scattered beer cans or cigarette butts used by strangers. You know the security cameras won’t notice you, so you take the time to watch a black widow spin her web. Around and around. Compact body. Spinning in circles. She pauses when a slip of paper gets caught up in webbing. Life interrupted. Think about picking up a glass shard on the ground to remove the interloper.
Squash her.
Remove the body from the sole of your sandal. Get thrown off balance from the corpse under your sneaker and fall into the street. Land hard on the asphalt. Rocks dig into your bare knees. Skinned nonexistent. The road is normally empty, but light fills your vision. Turn to see the grill of a run-down VW van galloping toward the next town. The car your college roommate drove before transferring sophomore year to be closer to family. Think about flinching, rolling to the side to avoid being hit.
Metal ignites.
Hurt doesn’t emanate but you know how it felt. Metal can be cold and harsh and full and quick and heavy instead of nothing. Bracing isn’t what allows death to do its job. Human error and stupidity complete it instead. Rust tastes like blood when it passes through corporeality. So, bite down on old pennies as the car speeds up. You are nothing but a static burst through the Taylor Swift song on the radio. Think about staying in this spot forever.
Keep going.
Make your way to the edge of the bay, where the water meets the city. The skyscrapers loom behind you, reaching for clouds and anonymity, one which comes easily. Ignore the steel and rot and bare skin. Remove your sandals. Everything is cold. Put your toes in the brown water and pretend it’s the last place you were happy. Breath, gasp, fight. The sun rises. Pretend you feel its warmth. Sirens. Chatter. You close your eyes.
The city wakes up.
Lauren T. Davila is currently pursuing her MFA in Fiction at George Mason University. She holds a BA in English and a BA in Creative Writing from Pepperdine University. She splits her time between Los Angeles and Washington D.C., where you can find her writing in coffee shops, swimming in the ocean, and searching for the perfect açaí bowl. You can follow her on Twitter @laurengilmore03