Done Adulting Vol. 1 Ch. 71 (Patreon)

It was hot in the car, even with the window down, the sun in front hanging in the sky refusing to go down at its hour. He drove anyway, down his familiar highway past communities no one remembers except in back-in-the-day nostalgia that never put a dollar in the pockets of anyone left behind in places superfluous to the forces that move until he pulled off the highway and felt that bright-burn sun and the dust of the road behind filled his rearview and there was nothing to see anyway. Past that barn again, held up by nails rusted close all the way through and leaning starboard waiting for a wind in the other direction to right it. Past that same house with the light burning out front illuminating only the shadows behind the orange sunglow of a dusk that wasn’t ending.

He drove into the woods that were silent this time, waiting for darkness to hide them, and saw no circles watching him from behind the overgrown ditch with weeds head-high separating him from where the cool shade and damp-green-moss smell were.

He went back to the highway and its stubborn glaring sun refusing to leave and kept going until the engine bucked and he pulled into that same gas station expecting to see the same faces and he walked through the door and was hit by a blast of heat and it wasn’t night yet like it was supposed to be and the night clerk was at home resting like she ought to be, this different person behind the counter giving him a different kind of indifferent nod and it just wasn’t the same.

It didn’t feel right. None of it felt right. The air was hot. The light was hot. Everything stuck to him. The sun wouldn’t go away. And everything was wet.