clouds across a sky-blue mind

Author's note: I was supposed to post this before in between "nothing but time" and "cool, dark places," but neglected to do so. So now, here it is to break up the flow of the narrative.

From astride the shattered throat of the nation, the sunrise bled. The sky a crooked wound never to heal – the clouds the jagged scar tissue. More rain rolled in. From above the fury of the overflowing canyon, the pilgrim sat beneath the aegis of the store's collapsed drive-thru awning.

Next to him the silver platter with etching on which the clerk had laid a microwaved breakfast burrito and two small, perfectly round pills – one blue, one white.

---

It's important to remember, my good man, that heaven isn't closed off to those of us sane enough to expedite the journey, if you see what it is that I am saying to you. If that's your wish, then this little white bastard is all too willing to accommodate you. And if it makes you feel any better, I sure won't judge you any less of a stand-up guy.

But you see, as I'd hate that to happen to you, as I truly would, I think you should have a look at this far more nutritious blue motherfucker. Unremarkable to the untrained eye, it holds a ferocious hunger and vicious misanthropy, which are belied by its peaceful cerulean hue. That is to say, it's blue color – don't look at me all confused like that, it makes me feel pretentious. Forrest Carter, he said dreams are like clouds sailing across a sky-blue mind. This sky-blue pill goes right on ahead and gobbles up all the dreams, and leaves nothing but blue. Whatever unpleasantness lurking around in there, it paints it over, sweeps it under the rug. Of course, that means you're like to run across those things again, given time – oh, about twenny-four hours. Lucky for you I've got enough to keep the devil's own legions as calm as a country church mouse – and out here we adhere to universal healthcare.

That isn't to say, of course, that those are the only two options. No no no no no. I mean, alternately you could dance around buck-naked and cover yourself with rock lizards, becoming some sort of bizarre lizard-king of the wastelands, terrorizing any unlucky enough to wander into your domain, paving your bodies with the paths of your fallen foes and impaling their heads on spikes.

Or something.

---

His wife's brains in the back of the truck. White. The ever-present fucker, looking down, glaring at him, daring him – wanting him – to sin with the taking of another life. Blue. The fact he'd already killed the woman he loved the most – damned already, and he too proud to beg the fucker and his son forgiveness. White. The pit, with its frozen lake and constant torments. Blue. None of it existed – it was all superstition and a hoax, like Santa Claus, and he had been too weak in the face of the complete and terminal lunacy of the last days of mankind to admit it. White. The thought of his heart ceasing to beat. Blue.

White. Blue. White. Blue. The rain never ceasing but rising to a crescendo of fury, as if the lord above who he had renounced wished to grind his face to the ground until he finally shouted out his true nature for the world to see – finally gave out the last, pathetic shred of reason that remained to him after everything had been taken.

A flash of lightning no more than a mile away, and in the glaring slash there appeared the clerk in his fedora and long brown coat. The gun dangling unconcerned at his hip beneath the protection of the coat. His booted feet struck the stones as he approached, and he joined the pilgrim beneath the collapsed overhang, taking a seat on the concrete median between the two drive-thru lanes. Whipped his hat about to shake the water off. Every move somehow preening. The pilgrim did not look at him.

Now if you don't eat your burrito, then you aren't going to get any ice cream.

The pilgrim's fists flailing out, an inhuman shout bursting from his throat, hurling the platter into the wet, scattering its contents among the rocks. Throwing the clerk to the ground, straddling him, his hands grasping the scruff of his shirt and shaking him. It's all funny to you, FUCK YOU! You've never had anything, never believed! It's EASY for you to laugh, you fuck, you lousy...

The clerk kept his hands wide and open, not making any effort to defend himself. The pilgrim's outburst little more than dirtying his coat. Everybody deals in a different way with the junk knocking around loose upstairs. I see humor isn't your preferred method.

The pilgrim got off of him and fell weeping to the ground. The clerk sat up after a moment and slapped the grit from himself. I'm starting to think it might be unsafe to leave you unsupervised. But somebody needs to get some food, so as soon as this monsoon passes us up I'm going to take Sal out and see if I can't grab us some rattlesnake. Or whatever snakes are indigenous to western Nevada. You know Nevada means snowed-on? That's it. Half this damn planet was named by drunk Spaniards, it seems – I sure as hell haven't seen a damned flake of the stuff out here, I don't know about you.

Why did he take them?

The clerk stopped at this. Silence for a moment but for the uncaring rain, and the gentle roll of thunder from across the distance.

He didn't take anything. You drove your damn horse into a hole in the ground and accidentally killed your whole family. If you'd ridden a few feet right or left or gone slower in poor visibility, you wouldn't have, and you'd still be passing through here now, happy with them, or after a fashion, unless you beat them, in which case that's your own nevermind, because I certainly don't care. Afterward, I'm guessing from your theatrics, that you blew your own wife's head off to save her another few days of suffering. So near as I can figure, that's your fault, too. And this is the important part – if it had been any other dumbass and his loved ones rolling along in your very same tire treads, well that dumbass would be right where you are right this minute, and I'd be here straightening him out, too, because like the world that turns around the sun and all other things bound by the pull of gravity and the nuclear forces, I treat all folks just about the same. And if there's a big naked old man in the sky who only loves white people that think white people crossed the desert into Bathsheba or Canaan or whatever the hell weird-named place that's the promised land, then he's sure not showing any preferences as to who rides into a hole and blows their wife's head off with a shotgun. What I guess I'm saying, I think, is that I think you feel singled out, and that's just not so. But I must say I'm pleased that you decided not to take either of those pills. Shows you've got spirit – that's the important part.

The pilgrim had curled into a ball and begun a low moaning. The clerk stood over him that way for a while. The rain abated somewhat, still beating against the awning.

You can admit that, or I guess you don't have to. Just make up your mind one way or the other. You're getting kinda tiresome, frankly.

---

Some time later, the clerk was sitting inside the store, and when he looked to the door saw the pilgrim standing at the front register – then the man shuffled over, wet and dejected, to join him.

It's my fault.

What is?

I'm sorry.

I suppose that IS the next stage.

I don't know what I'll do next. I want to keep living.

Not too much of an expert on what to do next, old sport. But if living is your immediate concern, you can do it here until you feel you need to move on.

How did you end up here?

How did any of us?

(Author's note: All caught up? Chronologically, this is the post you should read next. Thanks for your patience.)