#1: Roadside

Steinbeck Bend Road curved in front of me, sharp and sudden. To my right, a white fence held in a green stretch of shallow hills where horses grazed. Coming up to the light, before turning towards China Springs, a congress of three small crosses stood by the road. They'd been there for as long as I was driving this road, at least five or six months.

But today they had a visitor.

A woman stood next to them and bent down to lay something on the ground in front of the middle cross. The cross stood white against the green grass, reaching up and out, stoic. She stood up and looked again at the three memorials before her.

My light turned green; the truck in front me began to roll forward into the intersection. The woman fell back down to her knees, her hands covering her face.

From the rear view mirror, I couldn't tell if it was her son, daughter, husband, friend, or lover who had died on the road, in the middle of the night, five or six months before.

Issue Six Index