Your end is a dead blue wren.
'Did you see that, Slim?'
'See what?'
'Nothing.'
Your end is a dead blue wren. No doubt about it. Your. End.
No doubt about it. Is. A. Dead. Blue. Wren
*
The crack in Slim's windscreen looks like a tall and armless stickman bowing to royalty. The crack in Slim's windscreen looks like Slim. His windscreen wipers have smeared a rainbow of old dirt over to my passenger side. Slim says a good way for me to remember the small details of my life is to associate moments and visions with things on my person or things in my regular waking life that I see and smell and touch often. Body things, bedroom things, kitchen things. This way I will have two reminders of any given detail for the price of one.
That's how Slim runs. Swimmingly as a rotor, across the shorelines of California. Driving to god knows where that's for sure. But who asks honestly, not me. Not Bekket. Not Ma, not Pa, not aunt Louise or Rodney, Slim's all but unknowing brother. The black velvet car jerks over a speed bump. Remembering was Slim's trophy from the past. It gave proof to the myth of what Slim went through, a couple years back. How he got through months of those appointments with people in blinding light suits. The way two visions or moments bought you back, giving everything two meanings, reasons. One for here, one for forgetting back then.
The road twists lazily to the left, passing a sign saying "San Francisco, 45 miles". The car radio beeps monotonously with colours of dull blue. The colours of the car radio look like the colour of Slim's eyes. Dazed, drab. Lost.
'Where are we going?' I ask
'Huh?'
I pause and blankly reconsider.
'Nothing, it's not important'
Slim's bony face quivers, looks like the bridge back down in hometown Lakewater. He stretches, breathes, looks over.
'There's nothing back there. No one. It's about time we move on, they would've wanted anyway' lectures Slim
Every summer break, Slim and I would walk around the beach, passing willow oaks and sandy shells whilst the waves crash. I would talk about school, my friends, my pet dog, how Ma and Pa were doing. Then we'd reach the wooden balcony, near the trees, and Slim would talk about his things. In town, no one really heard Slim talk. Or, as a matter of fact, listen to him. I remember twice, the day this chubby slick-blond haired kid in the class below me, flicked gum at me, babbled about all sorts of things about me till the teacher absently intervened. A lot was about Slim. The weirdo, he said. The freak, he wailed. No one likes him, was his last comment till I demonstrated to mc chubby blonde face the proper way to use a pencil. He didn't go to school the next few days.
The car smooths down the desolate highway. It's early morning, glittering and shimmering tirelessly over the puddles of water left after last night's storm. My clothes are still wet.
'What about Ma and Pa?'
Frankly, I sense the air of the car thicken once those words escape my lips. He doesn't respond. Slim's grip tightens. The road beside us moves faster. The car jolting with an edge of speed so that the road outside the window looks like it's running away from us. He doesn't respond, or care to notice I spoke, cause his dull, cold, eyes remain affixed on the road, like a predator watching its prey.
'No one listens' he said
'No one even tries' he said
*
Your end is a dead blue wren. No doubt about it. Your. End.
No doubt about it. Is. A. Dead. Blue. Wren
