First-place winner: Mysterium Tremendum
by Robin Seidman
Black marker sliced onto torn cardboard.
Made a Poor Choice.
I saw her before I saw her, peppered colored dots between the wipers' backforth beat. A Toyota's B-flat blare punctuates the crimson brakelight inertia on the 14th Street exit ramp. I wait 11 cars behind her. Ten. A puddle's splosh lightly soaks my ankle, brake pedal, car mat. Owned by a schoolteacher. Yeahright. Next to me a wearywise driver pounds her fist at 10 and two. Everybody here is from someplace else.
Seven cars.
Yellow to red. Damn. I startle myself. HONK. Just for the hell of it. I'm latelatelate. Always rushing. I'm supposed to interview that woman at 8:50 in front of the High Museum. Her black silk suit, stiletto style. I retie my dark splotched scarf around my SkinSoDry neck. Double knot the stain patterns. A jagged run seeks freedom from my inner thigh. I pull down my rayon skirt. Mid knee. Flared. Page 145 Bizarre Magazine. Who am I kidding?
Six cars in front of her now. Her sign flops slightly, letters smeared, flyaway auburn strands whip unprotected under her cardboard makeshift shelter. A Honda splatters past her beseeching hollow stare. I made a poor choice, I made a poor choice. Blue jeans. Knarled beige sweater. Reeboks. She could be anyone. She could be me.
I grip the steering wheel, my breath forming ink stains dancing on dew. Who do you see in the pane? I play the game. A rabbit. A fluffy deboned wild hare. Road kill. A SUV. Didn't stop. Didn't take a chance.
The Pontiac five cars up speeds left on yellow, passes her. Clara. Lena, maybe. Contact avoided. Appointments call. Can't stop the routine, the rush of have to be's. A dusky Buick joltingly brakes. I almost slam into him. Single. Bearded. Probably broke some girl's heart last night. I powerlock, intent on not noticing her. Not going to look at her.
Bearded Buick half unrolls. Intent! Shards of glass. Blood gushing on the pavement, smearing her cardboard sign. I play. A flamingo. Pink stained feathers flaring, spreading, semen-stained, scalded. A green bill whips in the wind. George Washington. She reaches but misses. Will he pull her through his window, slap at her, scream Bitch Slut Cunt. Three cars. What if he stabs her. Skin so smooth. Why is she here? Doesn't she know someone could hurt her? That it's unsafe? Can't she just find some refuge? A job? Idiocy. I don't have time for this idiocy. Poor choices. She's making one right now as thatwoman waits impatiently for me in front of the High's one Monet. Haystacks now hangs in my new foyer. It's the only print I saved, that hadn't been destroyed.
She takes the bill. He lets her take it. She nods her head. He speeds on. Thank God. There must be a God. He didn't hurt her. She shouldn't have taken the chance. Godamned her. So vulnerable. Green! If the asshole in front of me floors it I can make the light. Go! No. I don't want to stop. Not here. Don't look at me. Hazel eyes, the kind that change from green to blue. No makeup. She doesn't yet need makeup. Damn her for looking so sad. I can't stop I can't stop I can't stop.
Red. I look ahead, careful not to hold her stare. The left lane's a standstill of drizzled burned ash glare. Go. But no one moves. Potential energy like seventh-grade Industrial Arts where the yellow matchbox dump truck is perched upon the flat ramp. It has the potential to move. If I pick her up, she could kill me. She could take all my money and use it for Jack Daniel's or Southern Comfort. She doesn't look the type who devours Krispy Kremes right from the box one after the other, airy, sticky carbs that are all wrong but feel so right when you just want sweetpleasant, to be filled up, to be full. She's too thin to indulge in donut roulette where just one more makes you nauseous, too full, but not enough leaves you craving more. Toofull eyes seep into me. I look at her through my glary rolled up window. She mouths, "Please."
Made a poor choice.
She's just a girl. Hell, I'm just 27 inside. My Grandma admitted her heart was 54, my mother's core, 12. I wonder if her 20-yeared self is already cynical, has dismissed having a child, finding true love, reconciling who she is with who she wants to be. I can't help but think what her mother would say if she saw her now. Does she have a mom? Maybe her motherlessness has brought her here. No one to turn to -- doesn't have anyone. But herself. Maybe she doesn't even have her. Flamingo. One legged. Hiding behind her sign.
Latest in Cover Story
-
Cocaine Town 16
One in three men arrested in Atlanta has cocaine in his system. And that's an improvement.
-
Can Don Lemon set CNN straight? 62
Cable news is broken and the 'CNN Newsroom' anchor could be the guy to fix it
-
Newt Gingrich's rope-a-dope strategy 9
Gingrich's plan — wait until other GOPers punched themselves out — worked beautifully. Now ...
- More »
-
Don't let Georgia Power derail solar power 38
Proposal under Gold Dome deserves moment in sun
-
Eat
morless chicken 16Georgians for Pastured Poultry seek to raise awareness of our factory farming problems
-
Neighborhood News: Another day, another series of Occupy arrests in Midtown
Also: Former Atlanta Police Chief Richard Pennington’s wife, Rene, was arrested downtown for DUI last weekend
Comments (0)