"In My Next Life"

BY KAYCIE CARR

My childhood home went up in flames. I packed a suitcase and started walking. I settled on biblical punishment; locust swarms, frogs falling from the sky – not a premeditated attempt to start over. I passed by an abandoned strip mall. Boarded-up storefronts and yellow laminate signs saying “everything must go,” and so I went. I slept without dreams for weeks and weeks. I stopped at a small town oppressed by petty tyrants and everyday American politics. A metaphysical shop, a hardware store, and a fish bait stand. A rusted streetlamp speaker played an old country song. Maybe contemporary. My father’s truck had velour seats. We used to play tennis in the driveway. He always struck the ball over my head and out into the field behind the road. Now he talks of God and politicians, crafting ideological scribes out of desperation to be a man who is not pushed by the wind. Mallards slept on the edge of neglected backyard swimming pools that had turned into brown water ponds filled with algae. Wood-paneled walls, ancient cigarette fumes. Sunlight pierced where the ceiling fan should be. I tore open my suitcase. Distant dogs barked in an off-beat rhythm. I checked my face in the mirror behind the bar. Last night’s mascara is all the rage. Glass shattered and turned from clear to red. I could’ve sworn I heard someone say my name. You plugged the heater in and the power surged. The doorframe had claw marks on it. The coffee table’s legs were gnawed thin. I opened the oven; the door fell off. You kicked the couch; mice scurried out. Everything was falling apart. Your words were hollow, yet spoken with conviction. Like a tired folk singer singing a time-defying protest song. In the beginning there was Adam and Eve and songs about coal mines. The cat stayed in the car, yowling. A bird cried out in mimicry. You made a potion from your pocket flask and what was left in the cupboards. I looked next door. A man, a woman, and a child. A car door slammed. Hands full of brown paper bags, mouths speaking a language I couldn’t understand. I was thirteen again, there was a party I wasn’t invited to; I wanted to know how it felt to leave the door open and not fear what was on the other side of it. The motor turned on, then off, then on again. Headlights flashed, wheels scraped the space between the curb and the divot where municipality-planted trees belonged. We’re the last generation to see fireflies. Childhood is gone. I traded my hand in before I knew I had gotten a rotten deal. A church bell rang. Scripture says God is no respecter of persons. I packed my bags. I searched for quick-fire sweetness as a way to pass the time. I carved out spaces where a home might be. I talked in my best imitations of people in a young city. Shed my skin and old identity. Rain came; the grass stayed dead.