“Standing Square On A Rectangle”

His ears rang. And as Roland Rollins sat, his mind raced too fast to pick up the fine details all around him. On the side of the road; some Interstate, close to an overpass, the local highway sponsored by the Knights of Columbus. He began gasping for air as his throat knotted and his eyes watered. Then he tasted the liquid, expecting salt, but instead, iron. His head banged. Across the median and out of distance from his normal twenty-twenty as his left eye began to swell; triple visions of his wife; Roland knew her voice, even if his ears drowned beneath waves of cerebral leakage.

Aisha cried. And her cries became louder, but the thud that followed startled Roland as he fixed his face to the backseat window, wanting to scream; his throat, refusing to let his voice be heard. Tears fell.

Cars raced by. Some slowed, directed by an authority shouting commands to move on; threatening bystanders with harassment for stopping and pulling out their phones to record the scene. A boy, barely seventeen, lay in the passing lane; his cranium blown to smithereens. The first cop warned ominously that this night would be his last; his breath, a distant memory for after life, if his attitude didn’t change. A busted tailight. Directives immediately given, without consent of exchange. Outrage, then fear. A flashlight through the passenger window of the old Ford Tempo, taking its last ride, and how…