Flat Tire Hissing
Every time he left home for work, driving his beat-up Toyota, 239,016 odometer miles, exhaust belching like Lucifer in Dante’s 8th circle of Hell, the corroded bumper barely hanging on with frayed duct tape, he felt like he was entering a black hole of no return. His soul was sucked out and turned to ashes like a cigarette butt picked up off the street and smoked to a burnt nub.
His windshield was cracked. It looked like the varicose veins of a diabetic. It looked like a labyrinth of roads designed by a dipsomaniac engineer. It looked like an alluvial stream scarred by sea churn detritus. It looked like his psyche.
His tires were bald, the treads worn
out, worn down, weary. The car's finish
was as splotched as
over ripe fruit, rotten to inedible, ready for a dumpster.
And here he was, driving to a job he despised working alongside people who despised him.
"Have a great day," his mom
said, as he slammed her front door, he an unwanted tenant in her home since his
ex-wife had thrown him out like broken eggshells.
"Black hole, here I come," he moaned quietly to himself, his voice a
flat tire hissing.
About the author
Steve Gerson writes poetry and flash about life's dissonance. He has published in many journals plus his 11 chapbooks: Once Planed Straight; Viral; And the Land Dreams Darkly; The 13th Floor; What Is Isn’t; There Is a Season; Have Not; Who Am I Today; Dystopia; Grim; and Through Shadows
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