Rest Stop

by Nat Cassidy

We’re all in this mess together. Things like religion, like nationalities, are just trivia. We’re all just bugs against the windshield of time, right?

“No, pupik,” she agrees, kindly. “But that’s not your fault. You know what I think? I think maybe the age you were born into, all these years of fat and comfort, this time between the great wars and whatever’s coming next—and something is coming, you can feel it, can’t you?—maybe this time has all just been some sort of. . . accident. An anomaly. Or a cruel joke. Or⁠—” “A rest stop,” he mutters with a rueful laugh.

Is this the feeling of being broken? He wonders. Or is it the process of breaking? Is this how it feels to refuse to break? Or is every moment simply its own act of creation? Its own god, too holy for a name?