Middle America Purgatory

7:30.
It’s June.
It’s 67 degrees.
You just got off work.
And You’ve got a few errands to run.

The stifling fluorescent light of the grocery store leaves You squinting in the blue outside air.
Your grocery cart bangs against the pavement.
The tinny ding of Your car trunk lifting up is the only other sound once metallic wheels come to a grotesque and screeching halt.
You think You hear crickets screaming in the grass. The grass that grows in the smooth beige rocks lining the parking lot. It could just as well be the sounds of distant cars.

Very well could it be nothing.
The lights above You turn on as the sky grows into a deeper blue.
You check the time once more.

7:58.
You barely feel the sliver of sunset. Blue drips away into white, white lights.
If You go fast enough You’ll be able to grab some Taco Bell and get home before 8:30.

Plastic bags crinkle inside Your hands.
There is no wind.
The streets are empty.
Every turn You make is cornered by a tire store. You stopped counting after the ninth.
Every building stabs the settling atmosphere with white light. You know if You tried looking inside You’d find nobody there. Living ghosts behind this setting sky.

Houses pass. Beige. White. Eggshell. Dark windows and shut blinds wall You into the same street. You are a number somewhere here. Perhap

Cranking open the car window. You feel no difference.
The distant scream of the crickets fills Your ears. Flat air rubs against your arm. A whisper of cold, barely enough to tell whether or not You’re alive.

You take a sip of your Baja Blast.

Tomorrow You will decide that there are more errands to run.
There is always another errand to run.