Two Sentence Tuesday #45

“What the hell am I doing with my life,” I groaned, driving away from my latest disappointment.

“I wouldn’t worry about that,” a voice whispered from the backseat.

Nighttime Drive

Nighttime Drive

Misty tangerine

Explosions in onyx clouds…

A storm’s rolling in.

The Drive Home

The Drive Home

 “CLAIRE!”

I woke up in a veritable maze of tall grass but had no idea how I got there… at first. It was late in an October evening and the falling temperature pierced my every nerve as though a cloud of ice was seeping through my pores. I could see no hint of the city’s luminescent aura to guide me toward civilization and the thickly expanding mist hung eerily heavy upon the ground, making me feel completely alone. But I wasn’t alone out there.

“CLAIRE! WHERE ARE YOU?”

I started remembering a road; I knew it was out there somewhere as surely as I knew my wife was concealed within the surrounding darkness. We had gone to a wine tasting party in the country and were driving home, dizzied by drink and laughing like fools. Claire unbuckled her seatbelt to take off her coat… she felt hot. And then she started to play the wily tease, unbuttoning the top buttons of her blouse in a clumsy attempt to be seductive. It was working; the car suddenly felt warmer to me, too, as my eyes locked onto the wisps of burgundy lace peeking out from behind her gray satin top.

            “ADAM!” Claire suddenly shrieked.

            The deer might have come out of nowhere; I wouldn’t know… I wasn’t looking. I jerked the wheel and the world became a sudden merry-go-round as the car had spun sideways off the embankment. We crashed and banged and twisted around like laundry in a demonically violent dryer. I became dizzy; disoriented as our ghostly headlight beams swirled with blurring rapidity in the darkness just before they were abruptly extinguished, and then there I was… lying in the grass.

“CLAIRE!”

Where could she have been? Why didn’t she answer me? The silence felt more terrible to me than if Claire’s bloodcurdling screams had suddenly pierced the inky veil. I was going blind with panic; the dread that I might not find her, and I didn’t know what I would do if that happened.

“Adam…”

I heard her voice. It was a whisper, but I heard it and I raced to meet it as fast as my legs could take me. The brush disappeared before me and I soon looked upon a ditch at the side of the road. Next to a splintered and crumpled fence post, I found the demolished remnants of the car; upended… cold… as dead as the hand that stretched limply out from under it. It couldn’t be; it just couldn’t be… Claire’s lifeless form was sandwiched between the car and the earth.

I fell to my knees, a devastated sudden widower. She had spoken to me; I was certain beyond any doubt. I reached out with trembling fingers to confirm her body was real, but stopped with a jolt when I noticed that Claire wasn’t alone in our car. There I was, still strapped to the driver’s seat and just as broken and dead as Claire. I barely had a second to comprehend the insanity when a hand gently pressed against my shoulder.

I turned and found Claire’s peaceful face smiling down at me. It was completely impossible. She was broken and withering in our obliterated car; we both were, and yet she stood before me without a care in the world. I had so many questions for her; so many things I wanted to say but as I opened my mouth to speak, she softly shushed me with a finger pressed against my lips.

 “Everything will be alright…” she whispered; “let’s go home.”

Her Face

Her Face

A drunk, defeated, tortured fool,

Lost in a smoky neon place,

Drank to make himself forget

The glow of her resplendent face.

He had her and so he had it all

Her warming love, his lady of grace,

But warmth was doused by bitter cold

That coolly pained her haunted face.

He brought that pain upon his love

He cheated and lied, to his disgrace

Betrayal reflected in her brown eyes

Rivers streamed down her twisted face.

He had her, he lost her; he lost himself

To whiskey’s fluid, numbing embrace

The bottle emptied, glass after glass

But at the bottom, he found her face.

Blind with drink, he stumbled onward,

Swerving from his parking space,

He turned; two lights came thundering toward him

And at the end, there shined her face.

First Date

First Date

By Brandon Palzkill

Shimmering starlight twinkles

In your bright sapphire eyes

As we jet down the boulevard

In a Cadillac convertible

Top down, winds blowin’ through our

       hair,

Got your feet up on the dash,

Head tipped back,

Carefree, you beam at me

And I fall in love.

I take you to the House of Blues

Buzzing with electric neon

Red and violet and pink,

Bathing us warmly; slowly

Swaying, grinding

To the gravelly rasp of Tom Waits

Singing through the juke box.

Hold you close; hold you tight,

And you hold your breath,

While you fall in love.

Gray, overflowing clouds roll in,

Thick, glassy raindrops

Pound the asphalt, sizzling; crashing;

Chasing us beneath a park gazebo,

We wait, sitting out the storm;

Your rain-washed flesh sparkles;

I touch you… you shiver.

I taste sweet precipitation

On your lips

As we fall in love.

Road Trip

Road Trip

By Brandon Palzkill          

Miles come, miles go,

miles disappear

in a racing ripple of asphalt

beneath my revolving tires.

Love to watch the seasons change,

ten miles down the road;

love to meander

through a waving channel

of gold and auburn leaves

on a rosy autumn

afternoon;

love to watch the world turn

at seventy miles

per hour,

and see where I’m at

when the gas runs out.