“It’s a fucking ziggurat,” Mackie spits out. “Look the way it towers out of fucking nowhere.” Anderson just smiles through bloodstained teeth. The three of them, some psychotropic fight club, had been at it for hours. At the penultimate round, Anderson reached around the poor fuck’s neck and sunk his teeth in. Moves like that earn the name hillbilly vampire, perks Cassie. She’s in the convertible smoking the last of their cigarettes. The buildings indiscernible. Etchings of some eldritch origin. Upon closer inspection, the poor fuck is still breathing. Uncertain for how much longer, though.
“In Autumn,” Anderson quips, “you can taste the sin on the teeth of those who eat.” Chrysanthemum chews her nails. She’s in the driver’s seat watching the orange glow pulsate from behind the billowing smoke. “Don’t mind her,” Anderson adds, “she ages in reverse.”
“Depression isn’t a career choice,” she says. “It’s a fucking destination you take where you’re on the road.” At this, Cassie gets off and walks to the poor fuck’s near-corpse. “Where do we go when we die, Mum?”
“No one knows, really,” she says. “Where do any of us go when we fall asleep, dear?”
The eyes, they’re bloodshot. “We go north,” Mackie says. “We go north and we find another one to fight.”
The four of them pile into the convertible. Are you coming? Some time. Yes. Some time to think, if you’d be so kind. No time for kindness, kid. One shot ride. We’re going to the fucking Ziggurat.
I turn my attention to the road turned off the edge. Powder blue sweater and matching eyes. Depression isn’t a career path. It isn’t a destination. It’s an obstacle. An inconvenience that I have to suffer in order to get to the other side.
“Funny you mention the other side,” Anderson laughs. “Why did the chicken cross the road?” At this, Chrysanthemum guns the engine and they dart away. “The end is not near where we start. Or some shit like that.”
Chapin City Blues 