Headlights(119)

Why?

Because pain. Fear. Alone. Because light, pain. Sadness.

The feelings, understanding, flash through me. I blink. Realize I’m still bleeding. Think maybe all of this is me slowly dying. Dizzy.

No reason. No reason other than this creature trying … to help?

And … the building. What is it talking about with the …

You want construction to stop? All construction? I say. Think. You want people to stop land development?

Images flash.

Animals. Plains species. Grassland prairie, riparian forests. Denver, its surroundings. This creature, entity. Its home. My …

But, I think, people will never stop building. I can’t stop them.

A feeling comes through. Disagree.

No, I mean it. This violence. And this killing. It … You hurt people. You— Images again. Memories. My own.

Afghanistan.

SWAT kicking in doors of homes.

I shake my head. It’s not the same, I think.

The feeling again. Disagree.

No, it’s not—

Enemy fire. Bullets spraying through the air, shells flying, blood, and— It’s not the same! It has to stop. Please. No more. No more death. No more violence.

The snow falls.

The Happy Inn. This creature, and me.

It’s cold, and I sway a bit. I don’t think I can stay here long. Stay anywhere long.

Where is Hannah? I reach for her, try to feel her.

The creature watches me. The Witchwalker.

Must protect. Building stop.

No. No more violence. That isn’t protecting us. You have to—

It slams me into a memory. The force of it hits me in the chest, and I’m thrown back.

VOOM.

Mom—Rose—in that pink dress at the John Denver Sanctuary. The park Hannah brought me to in Aspen. The one I recognized.

Rose calling me toward the water.

Taking our shoes off, wading through the river, climbing up onto the big rock in the middle of it, looking out at the green grass and trees. At the John Denver lyrics carved in the big stone at the trailhead.

The picnic basket and Mom’s crinkled old paperback. The two root beer bottles. The bruises on her face from Dad. The cut on my head from him too.

We’ve had a perfect day, here. Mom and me. In John Denver’s Aspen. I wear a hat just like his. Mom got it for me special.

“You know I love you more than anything, right?” she says.

She hands me my root beer, her book beside her. She holds the other root beer bottle and squeezes my hand. Her hands are both shaking. There’s a funny smell.

We had to stop at that old drugstore in town on the way here. Mom let me go upstairs to the kids section and get a toy cowboy there too. I keep it in my lap. She says, “This is life, Danny. Okay?” she says. “This is the world. It’s the sun, and it’s green grass, and it’s putting our feet in the water together. Nothing scary, nothing bad.” She’s crying. Why is she crying? Maybe thinking about Dad? I look at the bruises on her face, from him. I don’t ever like looking at them. “You know that, right? That this world is a good place? A happy place?”

Tears on my mom’s face. The sun shining against the water, against her tears, under the trees. Sun shining against the glass root beer bottles. Mom’s eyes on mine. That odd chemical smell, I don’t know what it’s coming from.

“Mom, what’s wrong?” I ask.

“You know that this world is a happy beautiful place, right?” She sniffs, her hands shaking.

I nod. My heart pounding.

Bad Feeling.

“Okay, sweet boy,” she says, the tears falling. “Let’s drink up, okay?”

I take a sip. It tastes funny. Bitter. Mom is crying. And shaking. I don’t know what to do.

Bad Feeling.

I don’t know how to help, don’t know—

She sings to me, sometimes, when I’m scared and sad. John Denver, my favorite. Her favorite is Blaze Foley. I know how the songs go, we’ve listened to them so many times.

I turn to Mom, and I hold her hand back. And I sing. “If I Could Only Fly.” I sing the chorus, and the water in the river flows, and I hold my mom’s hand, and the sun shines on us, and I hope it works. I hope I can do something to make her not sad. She stops for a second. Listens to me singing.

Her eyes change, they move from the river to me. They go from scared and sad to something else. She watches me, then blinks. Like she just woke up from a dream. Like she can only just now see me.

Then her eyes go wide, and she grabs my root beer bottle and throws it in the water.

And—

After, later.

Sick. Ears ringing. Sweating. Vomiting. Can barely stay awake.

A motel in Leadville. Couldn’t make it back to Denver. Sick, both of us, Mom and me. We’re throwing up, shaking. Ears ringing so loud.

Dad coming and pounding on the door. Dad taking us to the hospital.

Dad yelling at Mom, in the car. Ears ringing. Dad shaking a box of something at her. Mom crying, her head falling to the side. Like mine.

At the hospital, Dad says, “Kid was playing potions. Put a bunch of BC Powder in his and his mom’s root beer. Didn’t know what he was doing.” I don’t know what he’s talking about, what BC Powder is.

“Where did the bruises and cuts come from?” the nurse asks.