By No Means

"Reading is weird. It's like someone else's voice in your head. It's like someone is talking to you inside your head. I'm not stoned. It's just weird, you know?"

"I don't read too much."

The black and purple lake spread out like a bruise in the night. Tall, color-drained grass swayed, absorbing misery. Black clouds in the black sky above dissipated like paint in water. The moon appeared like punctuation. Its soupy glow dissolved the reality of everything it touched: the water, their indefinite pupils.

"You like these things? They look like corndogs." He broke one open and pulled apart the mealy fibers.

"Yeah."

Just beyond the horizon, a foul-smelling landfill was filled to near capacity, its top layer a blanket of the newest trash crushed, compacted by the treads of bulldozers. Forest and field rodents peered from hidden spots. Their noses twitched.

"Did those guys at Whataburger say something to you?"

"I think so. The guy with the gold tooth and the forearm crutches."

"I thought I saw them say something when I looked over."

"I didn't pay attention to them."

"What did that guy say?"

"I don't know. Wear a bra? Don't wear a bra? I think he said don't wear a bra or something like that. I didn't listen." Her eyes drifted down to her own chest. "I mean, I always wear a bra. Not to bed, but..." She mumbled.

In a clearing close by, oversized t-shirts hung on a line between a ratty tree and a trailer home. A dozen or so cinder blocks created stairs, seats, and tables for the empty plastic jugs and rust-coated silverware. 

"Do you like living here?"

"I haven't lived anywhere else so..."

"But would you live here forever?" He held a thin and knotted stick covered in peeling, paper-thin bark. His hands considered the texture before snapping it into thirds.

"Maybe. I guess not. I just don't know anyone anywhere else. I wouldn't know anyone."

"You could meet people."

"I don't want to," he said. "There are too many people around."

"Yeah. I know what you mean."

"I wish I wasn't living now, you know?"

"What?" She messed with the ribbing on her tank top.

"There are too many people. I just don't know what to do in the world because there's so many people. Someone's around to do everything there is to do. What am I supposed to do? I'm not going to be the best at anything. I'm just here."

"You could be the best at something. You just have to find it." She looked at her hands, at her trimmed fingernails. "Or create it. You can be the first person to..." She trailed off. Her soft voice mixed with the wind. "You could be the best at something."

"Probably not," he sighed.

Eight miles away stood a concrete and brick high school large enough for several thousand students. Everybody graduated. Nobody graduated. Year after year. It didn't matter. The halls were full and empty and full and empty, and the principal was a cocksucker as indicated by the writing on the walls of 67 out of 82 bathroom stalls including those used by teachers only.

"It's late."

"I know," she whispered. He leaned back in the patchy grass and put his hands behind his head. He appeared relaxed, but his body was nervous and tight.  His mind was melting in real time like the plasticy, yellow American cheese on a fast food burger. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"That look on your face makes me think everything is wrong." His fingers, sandwiched between the cold grass and his hair, curled over themselves.

"Well, nothing's right. I fucked up. I fucked up everything, you know?" He scratched his ears. "It's sad."

"Why?"

"Because tomorrow the sun'll be out. I'll have to show my face. And I don't want to." His voice was swollen. "I fucked up in school, in high school. I'm a big waste."

Just east over the freeway, a new fluorescent bulb plant hummed loudly but peacefully for almost no one.  Quality control worked nights.  They tested the bulbs in two different rooms, and from afar the windows would light up at strange intervals, slowing as the workers neared the end of their shift.

"I've got nothing."

"You shouldn't say that."

As if it was OK, as if he was an illustration in some phoned-in pamphlet about runaways, he fell asleep in the grass with his shoes off and pants rolled up. She stayed awake.

There was a bus terminal two towns over, providing service in and out of the tri-county area. Drivers arrived for morning hauls with their thermoses of coffee tucked under their arms.  They took people across states, across rivers, across entire regions. Everyone was faceless and interchangeable.

Her arm hovered over his chest. She pulled it back. Fuck she thought. Fuck. And she thought she could feel his blood push through his body and on toward his brainstem. Her hand crept so close without touching that she thought I know the pulse of his heart. But she could, by no means, feel that because it was impossible.