THE ART OF BURNING

XIII: DEATH IS GAY!

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CAIN

"IS EVERYONE BUCKLED IN? Anyone have to go potty before we leave? We're not stopping once we get started. I brought carrot sticks to snack on and water bottles if anyone gets thorsty." Sat in the passenger seat of Callie's Nissan, Maya slides her sunglasses down over her eyes. The frames are oversized black ovals, the lenses tinted a sepia hue; they make her look like a PTO mom. She practically is a PTO mom. Listen to the girl talk. "Everyone's got their gas masks, yeah?"

"Why carrot sticks?" I ask. "Jesus Christ, Maya, this isn't the apocalypse."

"Because they're real fuckin' good for your eyes, you ungrateful peace of shit!" Maya replies through a red-lipped smile. "I don't want your dumbass to get cataracts by the time you're twenty, if you even live that long. Based on your diet, you'll probably fall into cardiac arrest and die by the time the year's out."

Atlas pushes his glasses up on his nose, and I just know he's gonna go off in one of his History Rants. "Actually, that was British World War II propaganda to cover up their new radar technology that they were using to—"

"To kill Nazis," I interrupt, excited. My two favorite things: Atlas and murdering Nazis. Oh, and pasta. But I don't think that pasta is a part of this conversation. Should it be a part of this conversation?

Atlas just stares at me for a second too long, his spiel forgotten. I'm expecting that he's going to defend me to Maya, tell her that my vision's just fine and there's nothing wrong with a teenaged boy that hasn't eaten anything other than carbs since 2005, the last time I ever ate a vegtable. But then his expression momentarily looks like he just realized he's having an explosive bout of diarrhea. At the drop of a hat, he turns his attention to Maya, who's busy fiddling with the radio, dissatisfied with Callie's pop station. "Wait a minute," he says. "Did you say gas masks?"

"Yeah. Gas masks." Maya glances up from the radio, peering at him through the rearview mirror. She says it as easy and casual as if she was asking us if we remembered to turn the oven off. "Did you forget your's?"

"Forget?" Atlas asks. "Why the fuck would I have one?"

"Why would he think to bring one?" Meredith asks.

"Why the fuck do we need them?" my dad asks.

Taking advantage of Maya's momentarily loss of control over the radio, Callie quickly changes the station back to pop, grinning slyly. Ed Sheeran's gentle voice picks right back up serenading us like the romantic motherfucker he is. Satisfied with herself, she pulls the car out of the gas station, maneuvering it back onto the road. I don't know why, but I find the thought of Ed Sheeran existing in this dimension amusing. There are two of him; there are probably (definitely?) at least seven of him. If he keeps it up and keeps multiplying at this rate, he'll have an army of gingers by dawn.