I See You've Called in Dead

by John Kenney

“I feel like … it’s like I’ve been driving, okay?” I said, yet again unaware of the words coming out. “That my life is this long road trip. I thought I was doing okay. Things felt pretty good. Job, wife, future. And then it was like someone changed the script on me. Changed where I lived and who I lived with and what the future looked like. This new script was crap. I had a very bad part in this script. I was cast as middle-aged lonely guy. I don’t want that role. But here I am. And I feel like somewhere along the drive I passed a marker, a signpost, a spot along the road. I didn’t notice the spot. It was a nothing spot. But once I passed it, I crossed into the second part of my life, the part where youth and a fair bit of possibility are in the rearview mirror. And this voice, this person who told me about the signpost, I ask him where it’s all gone, and he says, Oh, it’s at the last rest stop. You drove away, thinking there was nothing but time. And I say, why the hell didn’t you tell me?! And he says, I tried. Like, a million times. Every day. Every word you wrote for your work. Every fucking moment that passed that you let go without doing something to make it matter. Every season that passed, every holiday you didn’t spend with anyone. A million times I tried. But you didn’t listen.”