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This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book... “a Finch in the Window” Down in the Dirt, v150 (the October 2017 Issue) You can also order this 6"x9" issue as a paperback book:

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Carrots

Kevin Sterne

    Night number three without a drink for Jesse. On a bus cutting through the middle of the dark.
    A few stops before Lazlan an old-time held a dog leash with no dog. He looked like one of those cigar Indians, a face carved by the Rockies. Jesse saw that the hand with the leash was shaking.
    The driver, this hulking man with braids, asked the old man if he was on or off. The old man just stood there and shook. Jesse knew that kind of shaking.
    Jesse ran his hand over the flask in his pocket, feeling jilted and sad. Earlier in the night a man he’d never met before gave Jesse orange capsules and kissed the top of his hand. That’s the way it is: try to quit one thing and end up just finding a new hobby. The pills seemed to have the side effect of clairvoyance and peace of mind, and he now regretted taking them. The Earth felt like it was tilting at a weird angle and Jesse kept cocking his head to level everything out. All signs indicated he wouldn’t make it home to Lazlan.
    What’s it going to be chief? the driver called to the man. Moths orbited the street lamp above everything. The night was a deep, burning purple. The old timer plucked a cigarette butt from the ground and fumbled with a lighter. He must have known too, the destiny of this missile.
    Jesse watched the driver stand on the gas. Felt the bus lurch forward, hungry for fate.
    And then he was thrust into another consciousness. His memory of Lakshar Gahr played before him like a filmstrip. He melts back in time to Private E-3 Jesse Thompson, again. Sees the Iraqi man laughing at him behind beetle eyes and soiled mustache, his head wrapped in a red keffiyeh, body cloaked in a dusty aba. The man cackles with a sickening vitality. Echoing in the silted little village surrounding them. Private Thompson is petrified wood. Desperate, exhausted, and willing his body to move but going nowhere. And this while time counts down to hell.
    Back on the bus, Jesse opened his eyes to the world floating in the center of a milky cataract. Squares of color crystallized into images. The bus seats, the blue light on the ceiling, the night in the windows. His hands white-knuckled the lip of the seat. The pores in his forehead stretched, his lungs heaved. His brain chemicals sloshed against the walls of his skull. This was how it felt to return from another consciousness. The present was no better than the past, so what did it matter if he lived or died? You have to come right up close enough to kiss death before you can ever be ready for it again. This episode just reminded him that he was fine with anything.
    Half the driver’s face was visible in the mirror, his one eye locked on the road.
    Alright back there? the driver asked.
    Just tired, Jesse replied.
    Lazlen is next, the driver said, then we’ll sleep like the dead.
    Sleep had come in waves since he returned from Iraq. Three days earlier he had visited his VA counselor, Lynn. She had olive skin, black hair. She’d crossed her hands over her legs and he’d seen little tattoos on her arms. One was a dream catcher. One was an eyeball. In another life he and her were lovers. He’d listened to the way her words came out of her mouth, let each letter collect in his head. Kick the liquor, she told him, It’ll help more than you think. He had no plans to tell her about the pills. He wasn’t ready to get into that yet.
    The wanting of a drink was most intense after an episode. Invisible spiders scuttled all over his body. Just a sip. Just a taste. Just a sniff, they screamed.
    He had taped her business card to the flask. Now he ran his thumb over it and the spiders dissolved.
    They’d be back.
    A mess of a man stumbled on at the next stop. The final piece. He seemed to be in the grips of a horrifying drug-induced vacation. His eyes looked like they’d been found on the side of the road. His aura pulsed with depravity. He took the seat right across from Jesse and immediately began speaking tongues.
    Some night, am I right?
    What do you mean, Jesse said.
    You didn’t hear about the lights over Tacoma? It’s all over the news, man. People are saying it’s the aliens.
    The man moved his hands in the air as if signaling he didn’t think the words coming from his mouth were all that serious.
    No I must have missed all of that, Jesse said and looked out the window.
    The pills had failed to alert him to these extraterrestrials. What could his eyes tell him? The outskirts of Lazlan passed like film fast forward. He glimpsed the lighted billboard for the 10-storey cross. WORLD’S LARGEST CROSS! HOLY JESUS! No signs of aliens yet, but they could be invisible.
    He peeled the tape away from his flask and brought Lynn’s card closer to his nose, searching for a good memory, but this new arrival across from him wouldn’t allow it. The stranger was barely in his seat, leaned over the aisle staring at Jesse with those crazed eyes.
    Do you think it’s the end of the world? the man whispered.
    Is that what people are saying?
    That’s what I’m saying. That’s my theory. But you know what? I’m okay with it. I’ve come to peace with the God, man. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen and there’s no fucking way you or I or anybody else could possibly change it. So just let it happen. Just let it do what ever it wants.
    I think that’s the right attitude to have, Jesse said.
    This unique character was worth saving, he thought. The driver must have figured differently because he’d started to really gun it. The molecules of the bus joculated as the speed increased. The man was thrown back in his seat, victim to physics.
    We’re moving, moving now, the man said. Then he let out a loud sort of Hee Haw. You mind sharing a sip of that, my good sir?
    Jesse rubbed the engraving of the bald eagle on the flask. The little ridges of his fingerprints over the words IRAQ and THIS WE’LL DEFEND. He reached the flask over to the man. The man took it and for a moment a conduit was created. Their energy connected.
    Right on queue the driver jumped on the brake. Like with a train that can’t stop, you anticipate the impact. The whole 10-ton missile went from 1,000mph to zero. Jesse and the man catapulted from their seats into the space between the floor and the ceiling. Jesse smiled hoping for the end.

    The day after Abu Sayyed and his rebels dropped the three bombs in Lashkar Gahr, a Priest visited Private Jesse Thompson and the 24^th division. There was no wind. The ground was a dry, open mouth. He lay with legs elevated and bandaged in his bunk, watching the guys play pickup football. The Priest introduced himself as Father Skinner, shook Jesse’s hand, and gave him a prayer card.
The angels have instructions, Father Skinner said, if something happens they will take you straight to heaven and report to God. You have nothing to worry about.
    Then the guys asked Father Skinner to quarterback a play. Jesse wanted nothing more than to run a route for Father Skinner right then. There would be nothing more American.
    Outside the tent, Father called hike. The receiver, Davis, took off like a jet, 30 maybe 40 yards. Beat his man by at least two steps. Father Skinner rifled it to Davis’s chest. A frozen rope. God had a cannon. But Davis’s hands were tomb stones right then. The ball fell to the ground and made this dead, deflated sound as it hit the dust.

    On the bus Jesse woke to a taste like biting into a fork. It was the bottom of the bus seat. He rolled onto his back, the ceiling was dotted with liquid that was surely blood. He stared at his hands. Use us to save the man, they said.
    Jesse grabbed the back of the nearest seat and pulled himself up. The man was up by the driver’s seat, his torso wrapped around the pole for the pass card scanner. His hands were splayed out like Jesus on the cross. The back of his head was smashed and dark with blood. Jesse’s gums hurt just to look at him.
    Jesse took the man’s hands in his, something he learned in a past life.
    It’s okay, Jesse said as he tried to transfer his spirit to the man.
    The man blinked. His eyes were two celestial bodies, blue and lucid, attuned to how this all would end.
    What happened?
    We had a wreck.
    The man started to get up, but Jesse stopped him. The man seemed to have forgotten the whole bit about accepting his fate.
    You might have internal injuries, Jesse told him.
    Sure.
    The man felt the back of his head then looked at the red on his hand.
    What’s your name, Jesse asked.
    Felix.
    Felix you need a doctor.
    I am a doctor.
    You need a hospital.
    Jesse stepped off the bus and into pouring rain. The sky was purple, raindrops fell like shooting stars. The driver was sitting on the asphalt leaning against the front of the bus. He seemed to be holding one of those orange road flares. But as Jesse got closer he realized it wasn’t a flare at all. Because the driver was eating it.
    Carrots, the driver said and Jesse sat next to him.
    A big stack out in the road.
    The driver motioned his beefy, carrot-less arm over to the pallet a hundred or so feet up the road, cardboard boxes scattered like fallen leaves. They were in fact carrots.
    Didn’t see the damn things until it was too late, the driver said.
    No, Jesse thought, you found them at just the right time. He felt for Lynn’s card in his pocket. He figured then that he’d call her later, maybe ask her if she saw the UFOs.
    Listen, that other guy needs—Jesse started. But the driver was busy with one of the boxes.
    Here, the driver held out a carrot. Jesse took it and marveled at it. The thing must have weighed a whole pound. A vibrant orange, almost glowing in the rain.
    Is it the aliens? Felix had found his way out of the bus. He had removed his shirt and had it pressed to the back of his head.
    What’s he talking about, the driver asked.
    I think the end of the world, Jesse replied.
    Carrot? Jesse offered one to Felix as he sat down. Now they were a trinity out in front of the bus.
    I could use a sleep, Felix said. Wake me when they come to take us to the mother ship.
    He rested his head on Jesse’s shoulder and that was perfectly alright.
    Everything was quiet for a while, but for the patter of the rain on the road and munching of carrots. Jesse finished one after another. They were the most delicious things he’d ever tasted. Someone or something had put them there. He was certain. Maybe Felix was right, maybe it was aliens.
    An ambulance arrived sometime later and Jesse was met by saintly women and men in white. They prodded him with gentle instruments, filled him with love and light. Then like gods, they lifted Jesse with their soft hands and he soared above them.

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