70. Tangled Thoughts of Leaving “Deaden the Fields” Deaden the Fields [Self-Released]
Moment @ 2:39
The side of the highway made him at least two different kinds of anxious. He brought the aging and sputtering black coupe to a halt, half the wheels on gravel and the other half still on the freshly paved road, and kept his eyes straight ahead. Looking to the left would mean facing the sporadic swoops of traffic past his field of vision (it was bad enough to have to hear them muted through the closed window) and looking to the right would mean looking at the roaming horses in the distance. Giant metal boxes speeding by on wheels that their operators may or may not be in full control of were scary enough, but for some deep-seeded reason he had yet to uncover at 22 years old, the equine family of creatures made his muscles contract, his skin protrude with goosebumps, and his brain to seize up in a debilitating fashion. Gripping the steering wheel with a force he had not ever known himself to be capable of, he felt his eyes widen to an absurd extreme and his toes curl with steady precision, revving the accelerator while the vehicle was still in park. He could not let this go on. He’d run out of the few fumes of gas he’d had left and then he’d really have no choice but to get out, walk to the nearest service station, and have to have only the air between him and the brown and black-haired monsters that galloped to and fro not but a football field’s length away from him. With that thought, he was able to loosen his knuckles and feet, though his eyes remained as open as a 24-hour diner. As he felt them dry to oblivion he knew they’d have to close soon. The fly buzzing about in the backseat helped expedite this inevitability, except its flight to his eyebrow shocked him so much that after a bit of manic flailing he opened his by sheer luck to the right passenger side, where he became suddenly face to face with a horse he hadn’t realized was much closer to the fence than the others. It was still a good 30-40 yards away, but it stopped his heart as its tail swished gently from side to side, batting away its own army of flies. The beast stared and chewed at the man in the car. The man in the car stared back, wondering what he could possibly do except get out of the car and walk toward it.
