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This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book... “What Remains” Down in the Dirt, v143 (the March 2017 Issue) You can also order this 6"x9" issue as a paperback book:

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The Vision

Patricia Hardesty

    He sat there in his shiny new beamer on the side of this God forsaken road in the middle of the night thinking back over his life. The events that had led him here. Roman was a hard worker. A self-made man. He had endured ridicule and people telling him he would amount to nothing because he came from a poor family. So Roman had done the only thing he knew to do and that was excel in school. He learned everything, soaked it in like a sponge, found out he was good with numbers. In high-school he he pushed himself in calculus and algebra and football. His football team made it to state every year because of him. He landed a scholarship to college and left the minute he graduated and never looked back on this tiny black-hole of a town.
    Twenty years he had been gone. Living the life everyone thought he would never have. He had a penthouse in the Village, a new BMW every year, beautiful women begging to be with him. He swore he would never come back. Never think of this place again, but two days ago, Old Man Gene, how he got his number Roman would never know, called him up out of the blue to tell him his mother had passed. Old Man Gene was still kicking. Roman remembered him being old when he was a kid, sitting out front of the local barber shop everyday proclaiming to see the end of the world. Everyone thought he was crazy of course, but a few times he had been dead on when telling someone they were going to die. He had told Roman over the phone that he had told Jeanie she needed to get to the doctor, that she was going to have a heart-attack, but she wouldn’t listen and now he was having to call Roman with the bad news.
    So, here he was. He had to follow his GPS to get back here. He had shoved the memories down so far; he couldn’t even remember how to get here anymore. The sexy voice had led him down this strange back road in the middle of the night with fog rolling in all around him. Then, about three miles down the road his GPS had given a guttural choke and died, then his car did the same. So, now he was stuck. Thinking back over the conversation with Gene, Roman was pretty sure he remembered him telling him something about not coming at night. Maybe he should have listened. Good one Roman, now you’re going to start listening to an old man who by all rights should be pushing up daisies himself by now.
    Shaking it off Roman got out and decided to walk back to the main road. Someone might come by and see him and give him a ride or at the very least, he could get cell service and call.
    Roman was walking and thinking about how he should have just stayed in New York, he never should have come back. Besides, Old man Gene had warned him. Laughing at that thought, of listening to an old cuck like Old Gene. The fog was starting to get thick. So dense in fact you could almost cut it with a knife. All of a sudden, Roman could hear what sounded like an old man laughing. He couldn’t tell with the fog which direction it was coming from. It seemed to surround him. It was getting closer.
    Roman began to run. Panic taking hold and rising up in his gut, cutting off his ability to breaths. Then, just as it had begun, the laughing stopped. Roman dropped to his knees and sucked in air. As he lay there wheezing he could suddenly hear a noise coming from up a head. The first thought in Romans mind was A Beast is coming to get me. I’m being punished for something. I’m going to die out here on this back road and no one is going to ever know. As he lay there thinking suck insane thoughts, he looked up in time to see head lights topping the slight hill just a head. Oh, thank God, it’s a truck. Someone come to save me.
    Standing up, Roman began to wave his arms frantically. As the truck neared and slowed down Roman ran up to the passenger side. Throwing open the door he dove into the cab and turned, “Please,” Roman began, then noticed it was Old man Gene, “Gene, it’s me Roman. Thank God it’s you. My car broke down up a head about a mile, I was beginning to think I’d have to stay out here all night.”
    “Son,” said Old man Gene, “I don’t know who you are, but I’d be glad to give you a lift somewhere.”
    “Gene, it’s me, Roman,” as Roman was speaking, he noticed dark circles around Gene’s eyes. A ghostly white face. It was Gene, the way he had remembered him, only more dead looking, “Gene, come on, this isn’t the time for joking.”
    Gene didn’t say another word, just put the truck into drive and slowly started moving. Roman sat back for a few seconds, then leaned forward, “my car should be up here just a few more minutes. If you don’t mind stopping I need to grab a few things out of it and make sure it’s locked up. Not that anyone should bother it out here, but I like to take pre-cautions.”
    They drove on for several minutes. Where Roman’s car should have been there was nothing. Panic beginning to rise up and choke off his breathing again Roman said, “Wait Gene, wait! My car should have been back there. There is no possible way that my car is gone. I just left it a few minutes before you showed up. Please Gene, go back.”
    “Son, there hasn’t been a car out here on this road in a few years. The last one to come down this way veered off and crashed into the big oak just back there. Small scrap of a car, caught fire. By the time anyone got out here, they was pulling the driver out one piece at a time. Local boy, been gone for a while, coming back to see his mama. Roman was his name. Damn shame that.”
    “Gene, that’s enough joking. I’m Roman. You called me to tell me my mama had passed. I just broke down-back there-by the old-oak.” As he spoke and thought about what Gene had said, it hit him like a ton of bricks, “Gene, please, please go back.”
    An eerie, yellowish light began to glow from the dash board and Gene began laughing in a creepy, scary-movie kind of way.
    “Sure son.”As they approached the tree, Roman jumped out and ran over and looked down in the ditch. He could just make out the burned remains of a Beamer. Grabbing his head, Roman began to scream.
    As the screaming stopped, Roman could hear the sound of a blinker blinking. Lifting his head up, he realized he was sitting in his car just outside of the diner on the outskirts of town. Backing up and parking in a spot, he turned off his car and dialed Genes number. A woman answered on the other end.
    “Hello.”
    “Yes, this is Roman, I’m looking for Gene. He called me the other day about my mom. I need to speak to him if he is available.”
    “Sir, I don’t know who you are, or what kind of sick joke your trying to pull, but my father passed away three years ago. I suggest you find someone else to prank.”
    Roman sat there staring at his phone. An odd sensation creeping through his body causing the hairs on the back of his neck to stand on end. Gene had somehow, even in death came through and showed Roman a vision. Keeping him from a fiery death.
    “Thank you Gene.”
    Roman stayed the night in the hotel attached to the diner and the next morning found a different way into town. Once there, he did find out that his mother, Jeanie had died from a heart-attack a few days prior, but how had he found out? No one knew to call him nor did they have his number.
    “Let’s just say I had a vision from the other side.”

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