Concerning the Exit

  He stopped his telic hike only for a diner somewhere off of Highway 7, where three-fifty was too much for a dismal hero. It was the first food he’d eaten in an indeterminable while, and he promptly threw it up. He guessed that’s what happened to people with Problems. Either way, it seemed the only exit the sandwich deserved.




  Trudging on. Gravel beneath his boots, asphalt crumbles, valiant grass stalks, glass and garbage. Vehicles whizzing past with the sound of a cough. The shoulder widened out to a grassy roadside rest, small pavilion with a picnic table and cairn with a plaque honoring someone obscure. Taylor unconsciously moved from the ditch and into the grass, staring at his feet, staring at nothing. Trudging on. Leaving. Escape. Salvation. Redemption. The gravel-meets-rubber sound of a car pulling to a stop. Oblivious. Kept walking.
  “Eric!”
  To hell with Eric.
  “Eric!!”
  Eric lied, severed the bond, the sacred seal that bound, tied beyond temporal understanding for something as ephemeral as money.
  “Hey! Eric!”
  Eric was on his own now.