Glossy blood red lights smeared across the windshield in
disorienting strokes. The air whined and cracked from
the slicing of blades and sirens.

My mother locked the windows and doors to keep
out the sour hot stench of running engines waiting.
Soon the car was filled with the sweet smell of
twizzlers and muffins and rich dark chocolate.

Hours passed and the floor was littered with
shiny silver wrappers. My mother
rolled down the window as a man
walked back to his semi-truck, shaking his head
as if to will an image out through his ears.

Tales twisted together from the words and
question marks that climbed in our window,
of scraping flesh from the road and trying to
piece a man back together under
the billows of the white circus tent that
had come to town on that highway. An act gone wrong.

Or perhaps right, as the vehicle parked across the
oncoming rush stayed abandoned. The truck driver
poured probably alcoholic drinks and we learned the
car in front of us came from a swim meet. Engines
wheezed to a stop as all of us stuck became
tired of spinning and stalling and
wasting on the unknown.

Days later my mother and I
gathered around a screen searching for an
explanation, but only found one article that was
like a gutted house, missing toilets and
counter tops and door knobs and all the useful things.

The roots of evil are invisible, she said,
and we will never know what came up
through the asphalt that night.