At least once a week, I brake in the red taillights of another accident between sleep and work, suburb and downtown, island and city in the steady monsoon of the Northwest, and the millions of drips and drops and dented bumpers continue falling again and again.
So I merge left and drift past squad cars, mangled cars, lines of rubberneckers gawking, straining, hoping for a broken windshield, the freshly dusty black swerve of tire marks, the flash of the wrecker, a distant siren or two in their prayer for the glimpse of something singular spectacular, a death, any death—“You’ll never guess what I saw today!”—maybe even their own.
Dave O'Leary is a writer and musician living in Seattle. He's had two novels published and has had prose and poetry featured in, among others, the Daily Drunk, Versification, and Reflex Fiction. His forthcoming book of poetry and prose--I Hear Your Music Playing Night and Day—will be published in May 2021 by Cajun Mutt Press.