Spark: write about a conversation between two people in a car.
Real or imagined. Include dialog.
…or “Driving The Eternal”
“You realize, of course, that I don’t exist,” said the Eternal Immortal Invisible, sliding into the passenger seat.
“Put your seat belt on,” I replied. “I know that, but — the problem with a totally random universe is that when things don’t go my way, there are no clerks to complain to. Much of our American coinage and paper money implies that you exist, so I thought why not?”
“You want to lodge a complaint?”
“Absolutely. Things are currently not fair in my world, and they should be. What’s up is that I am on the cusp of another Goddam Dog Disaster,” I said. “I am not pleased. I should be able to petition the authorities to intercede. They should fix this unfairness.”
“Jim Morrison said You Cannot Petition the Lord with Prayer.”
“Don’t mess with me about this, okay?”
“Well… okay. So you’re saying in a random godless world, all you can do is sigh and accept whatever comes down the pike,” said the Ancient of Days. “But today you don’t like that. You want to change the way things are going.”
“Right.” I brought the car to a total standstill at the next stop sign. One never knows. There may be a heaven, and admittance may very well be predicated on traffic points.
“If something’s in charge,” the Holy Ghost started out. “There’s a chance it might be interested in how you feel about what’s happening, and it might change things to better suit you.”
“Exactly,” I said. “It’s supposed to be watching me and the rest of the sparrows. If it sees me gnashing my teeth, pulling my hair, rending my clothing… or sees me tossing ashes about down here…”
“In other words, when you get handed something you don’t like, you want to be able to throw a tantrum and change the outcome?”
“Of course,” I said. “As in the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Look at Psalms. Look at Job. It’s in the handbook the Presbyterians gave me in third grade. With my name stamped on the cover. No, don’t look at Job. You screwed with him big time. What the hell was that about?”
“I really don’t know why some things ended up the Bible and not others. The whole Job thing was just a side bet that got out of control.”
It was quiet in the car while I tried to get that straight in my head. If a Loving Being is in charge, why would said Loving Being torture a man by taking away his woman, his children, and if I remember correctly, his cattle and his land?
“Okay, here’s the deal,” I said. “The last four years have been hell. I found true love on the internet with an old flame. But, as I found out later often happens, he was just another haunting emotionally-abusive echo of my recently-deceased father. Loving him harder made no difference.”
Mist became a light rain. I turned on the headlights, and set the windshield wipers to intermittent.
“Then I had to put down my old Dogue de Bordeaux, Liza. I thought I was prepared for that. I had preregistered with breed rescue, and there was a dog lined up for me. But then, at the last minute, the foster mom snatched her back, and that really hurt. I was kind of okay — I wasn’t completely dogless. I still had Buster, my little French Bulldog.”
Suddenly, it occurs to me that I don’t know where we’re going. The only information I had gotten that morning was where the One I Was Seeking would be waiting. When I arrived there, I’d slowed, rolled down the passenger side window and declared myself. After the Prince of Peace hopped in, I simply pulled back into traffic without asking where exactly we were heading.
Realizing at a very deep level that the destination never really matters, I keep talking.
“Back to my complaint. So many losses. So dissed in love.”
The light drizzle was suddenly a summer downpour. Pushing the windshield wipers to high, I signaled and turned into the park. I chose a spot among the few cars facing the lake, switching off the wipers and the lights. I cut the engine. I sighed. Through the blurry windshield, we watched the storm slash the lake, whip through the willows.
“So. The rescue dog I eventually ended up with, Shiloh, was more traumatized than they’d let on. Buster and I wanted her to be a den mother like Liza. But that was not going to happen.
“Then… a year later, Buster dies. He dies, Shiloh regresses… it wasn’t until he was gone could I see what a steady force he was for Shiloh,” I said. “I feel really bad that I couldn’t see how much good he was doing just by being himself.”
“But you digress…” the King of Kings said.
“I always digress,” I muttered, staring at the steering wheel. “There is never a short form. There is only the long form. I am always compelled to include Every Goddam Interesting Facet of Every Single Thing when I try to communicate.”
“So what’s your exact complaint?”
“Buster’s been gone two years, and I just found out that Shiloh has cancer. A form so aggressive that it’s already metastasized. It probably metastasized a couple days after it started. Great. I’m already digressing again…
“My complaint is…” I started over. “That after I made it all the way through those losses and disappointments and hard truths, Buster failed unaccountably for a week and died. It was like hitting a speed bump without slowing down.”
“That was rough,” said the All-Being.
“I am still crying over him. I rocked him and burped him and held him in my arms, and he still just died.”
“You know that dogs don’t live as long as parrots do.”
“I know that. But listen to me. Now I’m losing Shiloh, too. I had this picture that she would be with me for a long time, that we would walk together for years. I thought I had made it through heartbreak and loss, heartbreak and loss, and I was coming out the other side.”
Resentful, and mourning a future I’d assumed was owed me, I sniffled. “I could see it — stepping into a whole new me, with Shiloh, transformed, like a lion at my side. She was becoming more and more comfortable, you know, and outgoing. Attractive. Practically magnetic.”
It had been such a clear image of triumph and mutual support. I sniffled again, pouted and held my breath. And then I just sat there and cried because yet another hook was being ripped out of my living heart, and it hurt like hell.
“It’s just not fair. In the beginning, she was so terrified of everybody. The last few walks we went on, people came up to her. She wanted their attention. She likes them when they’re not too big or too loud. Such a friendly lion.”
The rain stopped. The lake became calm.
————————————-
I remembered sitting lakeside more than 30 years ago in a car in the rain with a Native American woman. I told her every awful detail of my life up to that moment. As I finished, the rain stopped and the lake became as glass.
“There it is,” said Shirley. “The lake just swallowed all your badness. Everything you vomited out, it chewed up. It has swallowed every bit. Now all is well.”
And it was.
For a while.
————————————-
“Now she’s dying. I cannot bear the thought. I cannot bury another dog. It will be the third dog in four years. When Liza died, I still had Buster. When Buster died, I still had Shiloh. When Shiloh dies, I will be alone in the house. No children, no lovers, no dogs.”
Gripping the steering wheel, staring at the now-brightening lake, I tell myself that death happens. I tell myself that being born, really, is a death sentence. The information doesn’t soothe me at all. I see an old, tired camel. I see my old flame, who could love me and save me, gazing at the single straw, the last straw I tenderly hand him. Love me, I plead silently. Love me or kill me. I cannot bear another day alone.
“Forget it. You can’t fix it,” I said abruptly, turning towards the Eternal Abyss. “You won’t fix it. Deep down, I really, truly know that. Get out of the car. Just get the hell out.
“And don’t try and tell me this is all part of your plan, because if it is, it sucks. It sucks big time. And you suck, too.”
“We can let the circumstances of our lives harden us so that we become increasingly resentful and afraid,” the Dalai Lama said. “Or we can let them soften us, and make us kinder. You always have the choice.”
“Fine,” I said. “Want to hear my favorite bumper sticker? God was my copilot, but we crashed in the mountains and I had to eat him. Slam the door, it’ll make me feel better.”
God slammed the door hard.
If I hadn’t been staring so intently at the lake, wishing I had the guts to drown myself, I would have seen that he had a bumper sticker of his own. I would have seen him remove the backing, lean over, and smooth it down next to God was my co-pilot…
“Shit happens, sweetie,” he said softly. “And that’s the best I can do.”
He turned, put his hands in his pockets, and strolled back towards the highway.
Two days later I noticed it for the first time:
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cayugaview 