Forty

Forty. Forty miles and he had arrived here. It was the number that he set in his mind. Drive forty miles, come out the other side of this hell hole we call a living. Didn't pan out it would seem.

The station door screeched open, a lone strip of the rubber duster caught underneath the door itself. It was being crushed. Something out of Dante, he thought to himself. Set to be trampled by that which he was a part of. He laughed, backed up. The door screamed close. He laughed again. He went forward. Open. Laughed. After five minutes of opening and closing that door, watching that strip of rubber scream in agony, the man entered the station.

It was white. The same white as hospital lights. The kind that dug deep into your head and made your headaches worse. He knew. What a clinic, he thought. Think maybe we could just all live here for a while. Fixin' ourselves, healin' up till we can run our finger over our cuts and not notice the scars. He roved the aisles. Scars don't heal much like that, he thought. Gotta burn 'em. Burn 'em out. Just enough so they get flush with the rest of you.

The man passed a woman with a child. The child stared at the man, who did not stare back. Mama, he said, why are his eyes that way?

Shh, she shoved the boy away. They went to the counter and began paying.

The man continued up and down the aisles. He wasn't staring at what was there. It was the floor. The reflection of the the world from the floor. Funny, he thought, that which we step upon, litter upon, it seems like its the only thing that can really show you who you are. Maybe that's 'cause of what you put into it. Some philosophy. He blew between his lips, a gentle whistle. Some philosophy.

The final aisle: hardware and soup-cans, mottled with small oil bottles, WD-40, chapstick. Trucker stuff, he thought. Damn it if it isn't. A length of plastic tube, all spiraled into a neat little circle, a red plastic funnel -- that which matched the size of the tubing -- and a can of two-stroke gasoline. The man approached the counter, the woman and the child were still there. Behind the counter was a clerk, a fine dusting of black hair spattering his neck and his lower chin, a patchy post-pubescent scarping finish around his lower lip. The woman ushered the child, taking drinks and candy with her.

Do you know what day it is? the man asked the clerk.

It's monday.

No, no. The date. Numbers.

The fourth.

Month?

You don't know what month it is?

The man looked at the clerk.

April.

Thank you. The clerk nodded. The man put the tubing, the funnel, the fuel on the counter.

Anything else?

Pack of smokes.

Any kind in particular?

Most expensive kind you have.

Do you want cigars?

Cigars?

Yeah, cigars, rather than cigarettes.

What did I say?

You said smokes.

I reckon that'll be fine so long as it smokes.

So. . . yes, cigars?

Son.

The clerk grabbed a pack of menthol cigarettes from behind him and put them on the counter.

That'll work, the man said.

Anything else?

This. The man grabbed an ornate-looking flip light from a rack on the counter and threw it onto the spiral of tubing.

The clerk scanned all the items.

Total will be seventeen eighty-three.

The man rooted through his back pocket, brought his wallet out, rifled out a crumpled twenty-dollar bill. He chuckled. Cheapest birthday ever, he said and handed the twenty over.

How old are you turning? the clerk asked.

Forty.

That's why you asked about the day.

Yeah.

All this is for your birthday?

Yeah.

What kinda birthday?

Mine.

You gonna fix something.

Reckon I'll do just the opposite of fix something.

The clerk handed back the change from the cash-register. The raised his nose and shook his head. Keep it, he said.

Thank you.

Okay.

The man grabbed all the items, pocketing the smokes and the lighter, and left out the door, chuckling to the screaming bit of rubber. In the parking lot, the man uncapped the bottle of two stroke and began to drink. He drank till it dripped down the sides of his mouth, not wavering at the bilous flavor. Soon he began to feel his belly slosh full of the fuel. He then began to snake the tubing down into his throat, gagging as he did so. He capped the tubing with the funnel, pulled the cigarettes from his pocket, lit one. Time for the candle, the man thought, and he dropped the cigarette down the tubing, lit end first.

The boy and his mother were sat in the car. They had seen the man drink the fuel. Saw him shove the tubing down inside of himself. Saw him fit the funnel to the end. Next, he was on the ground, curled into a fetal position, gripping his stomach. Then he stopped, sat up, turn the funnel from his mouth and began to scream. It was a screaming neither of them had ever heard before. It was a scream of pleasure, pain, sorrow, happiness. A symphonic creech of end. The man looked at the boy and his mother. His arms like little pillars of flesh, supporting some tall statue of wire and meat, the man got up from where he sat on the ground, the noises still erupting from his mouth. He put his hands on the hood of the car and stared at the boy. He stared and stared. Soon his eyes were orange. And then they were gone. They were replaced by steam and the smell of boiling blood. And then the fire came out of his stomach, his chest, his back. And his laughing had turned into a bellows, spewing fire at the windshield of the car. The boy began to cry, and yelled for his mom, but he never looked away. He kept his eyes on the mess, the melting mess of a human being that was now draped over the front of their car.

He had just turned forty.