Spring was sitting maybe a foot away from the television, on top of his knees and waving the controller in his hands wildly about in front of him.
“Hey, wanna play me?” he asked, already ending the game he was playing and plugging in a second controller for me. “I bet I’ll kick your butt.”

“Sure, kiddo,” I said and ruffled his hair, trying to create a fun bond between us as I always did when I first sat down with him.

“Don’t,” he said absent-mindedly, killing off any chance for me to do so, as he always did.

“Which team are you going to be?” I asked.

“The Detroit Red Wings,” he immediately snapped back.

“Why?” I asked, unable to hide the shade of contempt I felt creeping into my face.

“Because they won the cup and they’re the best.”

Of course. I could already feel a childish competitiveness swell up in me. I chose the Pittsburgh Penguins, the team the Wings had defeated for the Stanley Cup, in hopes of trouncing him and proving his theory wrong. But it was nothing doing. He spent at least two hours a day on this game, and it showed. At the end of the first period I was losing 6-0, and Spring was already mocking and triumphant. I wanted to punch myself for letting his taunts irritate me so much.

“I told you I’d kick your butt,” he said matter-of-factly. “Why did you pick such losers?”

“Because I’m a loser.”

“Haha, you’re a loser.”

A fight broke out in the game. The fighter on my side was a player named Colby Armstrong. I knew who he was; I remembered him playing for the Penguins, but I thought I could remember him being traded. I liked his style of play: he was sleek and quick, a small player who relied on finesse, speed and smarts to make in the rough sport. He had a baby-face that actually reminded me a little bit of Spring. Colby Armstrong was not a fighter, and it troubled me that the game had made the mistake. Spring noticed nothing amiss.

“Look, I’m killing you!” he screamed out fitfully as the fight waged on.

“Armstrong doesn’t fight.”

“That wasn’t even close,” he said after he knocked my player out, a rare, big smile lighting his face. “You didn’t even get one punch in.”

“Armstrong doesn’t fight. The game’s wrong.”

He didn’t even hear me. He had turned back to the screen and was swinging his head back and forth while pumping his arms in the air, singing in celebration of his victory.

I was happy when the game was over. I decided spending time with Spring was a chore and I had enough people eating up my time, people whom I had no choice but to be around. Co-workers, citizens, bank-tellers, families, medics, pugilists, they were everywhere. I abruptly got up when the game ended and walked up the stairs, serenaded by his jeers that obliged every last ounce of self-restraint I had to prevent me from going back down and throttling his frail neck. The next morning I left.

When I returned to work I fond out the whole town was buzzing about the accident, it being such a small place. It was the biggest news of the week, and since I was in the news business I heard a lot about it, even though people tried to lower their voices and pretend they were talking about something else when they knew I was around. It didn’t bug me though. It took on the feel of an anonymous story when it was discussed by other reporters inside the confines of the newspaper world. Twice I almost found myself asking about this accident I’ve been hearing so much about lately before I realized it was the same one that ended Raina’s and Jen’s life.

Normally a story like this would fall under my jurisdiction, and naturally I felt I was in the best position to write it, having been there. It could be a profound piece of journalistic work. Instead my boss quietly relieved me of the duty.

“Obviously, this is not something we’re asking you to do,” he said apologetically, with his head bowed and his hands forming a little cuffed teepee under his chin.

“Oh, yeah,” I said, a little confused at first. I was even disappointed, but it soon paled to indifference when I began to be swallowed up by the rest of the day’s work. I had enough articles to write that week anyway.

I stayed at work later than usual that day, well past dinner. Finally I finished the story I was working on and left, feeling better than I had in a while for some reason. That morning had been so beautiful and fresh that I had decided to ride my bike to work. I picked it up again from the back of the building and started to pedal home.

The early evening air was warm but dry. It was imbued with the settled heat left over from the consistently hot day that hadn’t been stirred by a single breath of wind, and lacked any crispness or virility. However, it was inducive to the self-important thoughts that had been occupying my mind involuntarily as of late. It seemed like I was always shrouded in a weird limbo stage of the backseat peace.

I started pedaling and quickly lost myself in thought. I hadn’t known Raina very well, but after experiencing her death I felt as though I had. Her glittering green eyes weren’t the object of a passing fixation I had but the center of a prolonged passion. I felt I had grown up with those eyes, saw everything they saw and knew them and loved them as I did my own past. I never went more than an hour without having the memory of the flood of blood gushing out of her mouth eclipse whatever I was doing at the time. But it wasn’t a torment or a haunt; it was something I never wanted to let go, something that should be cherished and remembered as clearly as possible.

It was this that I was thinking of, Raina’s extinguished stare, when I realized a strange man was wagging his finger at me as he was coming from the opposite direction of me on the sidewalk.

“Hey, hey,” he said as we intersected paths. “This is a sidewalk, for walking, not biking.” He was scolding me like I was child, like I was Spring, up to mischief just for the sake of being rotten.

I turned my bike around and passed him again slowly, staring him down intently but soundlessly the whole time. He looked uneasy for a while, then just turned down the street in a different direction. I went back to the news office to grab the company car and drive out to the stretch of highway that had become Raina’s grave.

As I was driving I couldn’t help wondering what was drawing me out there. I really hadn’t known Raina well at all, and had trouble even remembering what her light laugh had sounded like. It almost felt like I was in a sickened sort of love with her that resembled a necrophiliac’s fixation. I had thought her eyes stunning when alive but in death they had become maps to another world. That backseat peace had never quite left since I had turned her lifeless head to face me and she had stared back in unnatural compliance.

It was dusk, again. Another clear sky hovered around the whispering countryside like a dome and a warm orange-red light rested easily on the horizon. I was coming closer and closer to the eerie scene of the crash, feeling more drawn to it and captivated by it with each passing kilometer. Soon I was at the old farmer’s crops, which were dotted with small, controlled fires, burning what was no longer viable in the field and sending tufts of smoke into the air. I thought of the old farmer when he first came to me at the scene, and even felt a warmth towards him. It now seemed a grandiose night that should never be forgotten, and just simply associating the man with the time I spent in the backseat with the two lifeless girls, then on the shoulder of the highway alone, made me think of him as peaceful.

In the distance, down the highway, I saw a strange, crisp glint. I couldn’t figure out why I was so attracted to it, but I couldn’t look away. As I came closer I saw it was Raina’s car, neatly pulled over to the side of the road but still insidious looking.

A sharp cry found its way out my mouth. I pulled over to the side of the road and got out, then crept towards its sheen through the twilight mist. I was so confused. Why was it still here? What possible reason could there be for leaving this haunting reminder of mortality tucked over on the side of the road?

The sun seemed to be setting at a very rapid rate.

Then I was struck by a thought, or, more accurately, a premonition: The girls are still inside. The thought of seeing Raina’s sultry eyes shrouded in the dark strands of her hair scared me. I was so excited I could feel my pulse in every part of my body. In my head, my hands, my legs, my neck, everything was pounding furiously and I could feel the blood rushing through me like fire. Boiling, high and frantic. I don’t know why, I don’t know why, but the girls had been left behind along with their car, their tomb. It was too dark to see inside the vehicle, so I continued my precautious saunter towards it. I didn’t let myself look directly inside until I was right next to the passenger door, which meant Jen’s drained body was only a foot away from me. It wasn’t courage but curiosity, an undeniable urge to know, that drove me to look. I slowly turned my head and looked inside.

Empty.

“Hey!” I heard an excited, feeble voice call out. “Hey, what are you doin’?”

It was the old man, the same old farmer who had attended to me the first night, now scuttling through the field of his burning crops.

“What is this still doing here?” I called out, pointing to the car. The wind pulled my question thinly across the sullen prairies and the old man didn’t hear me.

“Hey?” he said, his lips curled into a vicious snarl with the strain of the yell. He was still coming towards me so I decided to wait until he got closer to ask him.

I turned around and looked back inside the car. It was definitely empty, the bodies had been removed, but it was still stained all over with the indelible stamp of blood. I thought I could discern revolting pieces of ripped tissue resting on the dash, but I didn’t care to confirm it. I vaguely thought of turning around and checking to see if the blue truck we had collided into was still there as well, but decided I didn’t want to confirm that either.

“Look here son, you better get away from that car, it’s ugly business,” the man called out, now only a few paces away. When I turned around he recognized me and was visibly surprised.

“Why, why would they leave it here?” I asked.

“Just leave it alone son, let me give you a ride back into town.”

“No, I don’t need a ride, I have a car. Why haven’t they taken it away yet? I don’t understand, tell me.”

“Come, come along, we’ll get you back into town and looked after.”

It was as if he thought I was delusional or hysterical, and the fact that they had left the obliterated, bloodied car here was not questionable at all but rather a matter of routine procedure. I decided to take a different approach to prove I was stable.

“What are you doing with your crops?” I asked, nodding towards the arid smoke beginning to blot out the final rays of the sun like morose clouds. The fires were naturally spreading rapidly over the dry brush and needed constant attention or else they would blaze out of control.

“Gotta burn what you can’t use,” he said. He was now looking at me questioningly and apprehensively. I was suddenly sick of him and wanted to be alone. I thought of how peaceful the backseat of Raina’s car was, how enchanting and seductive and close it was. I deeply yearned to crawl inside but I knew the farmer would make a big fuss if I did.

Then he turned around and saw the tufts of smoke being blown a cross the highway.

“Jesus!” he cried out, stumbling over to his burning field.

My hand reached for the car door handle without hesitation and I let myself in. The smell of the smoke was heavy even in the car. The dash was stained red, so were the two front seats. Even the roof was decorated with misshaped blots of blood. I leaned back in my seat, content and quiet. I could barely see out the windows anymore because of the thick, grey smoke coolly traversing the highway in the faint breeze, recreating the twilight fog of our accident.

The full force of the night came back and hit me hard., the everlasting spin of the car followed by the complete silence that swallowed me whole. I knew it was something I’d never forget. I had found my moment, the one that is so completely yours it justifies the rest of your life, all the torment and pain, all the weary isolation. I could see nothing outside the car. There was just the greyness of the smoke that hid everything else from me. I figured I was safe, that I could sit there in the backseat for a few hours. It would probably take that long for the smoke to dissipate, then it would be dark by then. Maybe no one would find me until the next morning, and I could sit there with my hands folded in my lap the whole time, staring ahead at nothing but seeing everything.

Then I was wakened from my reverie by muffled shouts. I could dimly make out the shadow of the old farmer emerging from the depths of the smoke and coming towards the car. He was waving his arms wildly all around his face as if he could buffet the smoke into submission. I couldn’t make out a word he was yelling to me. He could only get a few out at a time before his voice was subdued by the smoke and he erupted into a coughing fit.

I locked the car and watched him from my backseat, wondering why he was doing what he was doing. The smoke was completely enveloping him now, but still he fought it, imploring me to get out of the car while he desperately gasped for air. His whole field must have been a fiery pit by now. I almost rolled my window down to tell him so, but I didn’t want to give the smoke any easier access to the car. It was already seeping into it and irritating my lungs. Plus I thought the old man might try to climb in.

I was getting sick of seeing him next to me. I wished he would step back a few feet and carry on with his hopping and shouting, as a few feet would be sufficient for the smoke to drown him out of my sight. It was the same exasperation I felt towards Jen when she kept trying to pull me into conversation when I just wanted a few moments to myself. The backseat peace, the countryside unfolding its naked body as we rushed by it, I don’t understand how these things failed to register on anyone else. At the very least they could allow me to have it. I felt she had been trying to rob me of something which was my prerogative, the one piece of life I could keep for myself between petty talk and television commercials, between bill payments and filling your vehicle with gasoline. And now the old man was here, still fighting the smoke without any reason to, still frenetically waving his arms around and entreating me to leave my peace. I closed my eyes. It was almost like he wasn’t there, but I could still feel him and hear the roar of his voice through the confusion of foggy smoke. Every now and then he smacked the window with the palm of his hand, making me jump and hate him more and more.

Then a massive clamor broke through the smoke. A truck rolled through it and passed by my window. It was so close that it violently rocked the car and I felt a flutter in my stomach. The truck left a clear path through the smoke in its wake, and I could see the farmer was gone.

The truck had struck him.

I got out of Raina’s car. I don’t think I could have found anymore peace there after that.

I followed the clearing through the cloud of smoke that the truck had left in its trail. The truck was now pulled over to the side of the road, right on the fringe of the densest area of smoke. I found the driver pacing circles around the old farmer’s body, dead, of course. It seemed to make sense somehow. The driver was a younger man, perhaps late twenties, with long brownish hair he kept sweeping back over his head in distraught gestures. He hadn’t noticed me yet, he was too distracted by the unfortunate tragedy he was beginning to realize he had played a crucial role in. Through the smoke and dim light I could make out the exaggerated features of his face. His thin lips were bearing his teeth as he was muttering God what did I do God what did I do God what did I do, staring at the corpse with unaccepting eyes. He never stopped moving once, nor did he make any pretence of helping the farmer who had clearly expired. He just paced around and around, brushing his hair back with trembling hands and whispering to himself to try and stay sane, knowing he had just killed a man. I thought, Maybe he wants to be left alone. Then I thought, Fuck him, no one left me alone.

I went to the company car and grabbed the camera and notepad. I fought back through the smoke which seemed to be mysteriously lifting by now, and set up my camera right next to the dead farmer. He was a mess. One arm was bent around his back in a sickening angle. Blood was all around him, and still flowing freely out of his body. The driver of the truck didn’t change his action much when I came to the scene. He never paused his pacing for a minute, but he did start saying things out loud, though more to himself than to me.

“I don’t know…I don’t know what happened,” he kept slurring over and over. “There was just all of a sudden so much smoke. I didn’t see. I don’t know…I don’t know what happened.”

I ignored his stupid babble and walked over to the farmer who was lying on his stomach. The violence of his death didn’t have the same serenity and peace that Raina’s had. I rolled him onto his back. His head rolled over loosely on top of his limp neck. I opened his closed eyelids. The driver had stopped pacing when I rolled the farmer over, but when I opened the dead man eyes he started moving uncontrollably again and kept slicking his hair back only to have it fall in his eyes.

“Oh, god, oh god,” he kept saying.

The farmer’s eyes surprised me. I had never noticed them before but now realized they were a startling grey, a melancholy ashen color. They didn’t elicit the same storm of emotion from me that Raina’s had, but they still had that glazed over look like they were shrouded in oblivion or infinite or whatever enters people’s eyes when they die.

“Hold still,” I told the jittery driver. “Just stand there for a second.”

He immediately froze where he was, with his hands in the middle of swiping his hair back and his face set in a surprised but vacant pose. I picked up the camera and set myself at an angle that captured the body and the driver together in the viewfinder. After I took the picture I thought maybe it would be good enough for the front page. The driver looked increasingly perturbed. I picked up my notebook and walked over to him.

“So what happened here?”

“I didn’t see what was happening it all happened so fast I couldn’t see anything then he was just there then I stopped.”

“Okay, okay.” I was trying to write down all that he was saying but I was having trouble keeping up. I was excited; I thought I would be able to make this into a riveting story for the paper. “Do you drive out here often?”

“Yeah yeah I live ten minutes east of here do you have a phone? Should we call someone? I mean it was an accident.”

“I don’t know, he’s dead now,” I said without looking up from my notepad. He didn’t seem to realize I was doing an interview.

The driver was beside himself. He gave a terrible interview. He didn’t really give me any information so I decided I would just do a piece that would be sappy and appeal to people’s emotions. It wasn’t that I was heartless, I knew he would need a while to collect himself after such a horrific event, but I figured everyone must be used to having nothing be left alone. Where do you draw the line? All I wanted was peace after my accident and I never got it.

I left the driver. He was still asking me what to do as I walked away. I didn’t care; he’d figure something out on his own.

Funny the way people deal with tragedies.

I got into my car and started to drive back. Almost all the smoke was gone now. The farmer’s field was charred and it gave off that new-smelling burnt aroma. There was no peace, it was all shrouded by grey fog, grey smoke, grey eyes. Even Raina’s cat eyes seemed faint and distant in my memory. I drove on with an aching absence in me I couldn’t imagine would ever leave. I felt complacent and stoical, but unsettled. Night eventually descended. I went home and fell into a restless sleep.