Short Folk #27: Driving back from Calgary

Note: Back by my little old self in Waterton again. Not too bad a life. The lady that owns this internet cafe just said my breakfast is "on the house" which is kinda cool. She said it's because of my loyal patronage, coming here everyday to post these, but really I think its because of my baby blues. Happens all the time.

Short Folk #27: Driving Back from Calgary

You saw butterflies sweep up the slope of the car right into the windshield. That started it. Then you saw an eagle divebomb to break the neck of what looked like its own baby. That was right on the roadside. You saw the still fuzzy featherless thing try to shimmy away before impact. Then you started seeing the really weird things. You saw cars on the road melting to leave “Midnight Black” or “Whetstone Grey” or “Bombay Tan” stains all over the slow lane. You saw the melted faces of their passengers melted inside the cars. You saw the road rise up out of the surrounding landscape like an endless parapet, like the Great Wall of southern Alberta. You saw the raised part of the road get thinner and thinner as you drove, first the road signs would fall off down the slope and then you saw trailers unable to hold the thinning line lose their back end and you saw them tip and yank the whole affair down into the chasm. You saw people getting out of their cars, with their cars balanced on an axle, both wheels hanging off the side of the now footpath of a road. And you saw them continue on, the road getting thinner and thinner at each step until it was one footstep thin, then thinner, then just like the blade of a knife. You saw people cut in slivers and fall away. Later still you saw the road widen again, but keep on widening, until all that rolling country was paved. You saw the mountains paved with perfect lanes painted on the paving. You saw rivers paved with a liquid asphalt. And people came from everywhere to drive on the roads. Every land was bumper to bumper with a thousand cars. And then you saw a huge wind come and take every car away, and every piece of asphalt on the mountains and in the rivers, until it was just you again driving down a two lane highway back to where you came from.