A naked man wearing nothing but an astronaut’s helmet walks down a lonely stretch of highway. I first see him up ahead as a tiny speck, but each second brings more clarity in my vision. On an empty portion of burning pavement in pancake flat Kansas, this man steps toward his destination, whatever that might mean.

“You need a ride?” I ask through my open window, my car creaking to a standstill.

He opens the door and slides into the front seat, inches away from me. I can’t see his face through the copper-colored screen. I think: should’ve got those damn seat covers.

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Mountains fall into a valley; a bridge collapses into a river. A crooked worm noses into the split core of an apple and into the darkness of flesh …

The world and his mind are blotted and muffled but for the cries of a child and a mother’s voice. Like a cabin window approached at night a scene begins to grow in his vision and the shadowed interior of a one-room sod house rushes up and surrounds him, with the cackle of a fire the only light. The shape of a woman is seated before the flames on a low wooden stool, but all he can see is the black silhouette of her back. Softly she sings.

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Tony came because my mother had been a valuable customer.  I guess there’s no other way to describe a woman who’s dropped that kind of coin.  He hadn’t changed much since the last time I’d seen him all those years ago. Time had been generous to Tony.  He had slivers of silver through his hair — that was new — but he wore the same style dark suit and red tie I had seen him in the first time we’d met.  He was cool, calm, and never let his smile drop.  The qualities of every good salesman.

“What’s going to happen to my wife’s soul?!”

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Chapter II: The Red Rooster

The drugs had begun to have an effect.  The incessant chatter from the women ahead of me and the lizard’s heaving breathing produced uneasy rhythms that didn’t match, and it began affecting me more and more.  Chchch-huh-chch-huh-chchchch-huh-u-huh…the pattern became random, chaotic, violent.  I heard the piercing, echoing chirps of birds that rung off of the few walls that remained standing in this dead place, and my anxiety built to a dull roar as we passed by ruined home after ruined home.  This had been the place where the common folk had lived before He took over and killed every living soul, and even now five years after His defeat only a few looters and distant cousins in search of a few coins or a family heirloom had touched any of what remained of the buildings.

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It was 3:30 in the morning when she woke me in her usual, horrifying way – with a sharp throb in my chest that sent me immediately upright in bed.  Once awake the pain dissipated, while the sudden surge of adrenaline helped keep me from falling back asleep.  It wasn’t the most comforting wake-up call – I’d much prefer soft lighting and gentle music – but she needed me awake and alert, so it accomplished the goal.

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