Natural History
The stoplight turned red. A man in a blue minivan slammed on the brakes along the right side of Blake’s pickup, having made a last second decision to stop well into the yellow period of the traffic light at Cousin Avenue and Fifth Street.
“Jesus,” Haley said from the passenger seat. Her tone was that of someone who expects little from society. She turned to look the driver of the minivan in the eye, but the man didn’t look back. She caught her reflection in the windshield. She looked down at her phone and again caught her reflection, this time in the phone’s black screen before it illuminated and the bright assortment of colors exploded and washed her away.
Blake tapped his fingers on the steering wheel in step with the song that was playing on the radio. The song wasn’t loud enough to hear anything beyond the skeletal components of the rhythm. 104.3 The Mastodon had been a staple in town for almost ten years, playing the “mega hits of the past” as if they were frozen in time with all the other frozen mastodons scattered across the world’s natural history museums. The sound of a video on Haley’s phone made Jack lose track of the rhythm, as it vanished underneath the clanging of boxes and jewels and smiling animal heads from an ad for Jewelry Box Bash.
The traffic light at the intersection of Cousin and Fifth was longer than it used to be. What had been a quiet spot on the edge of town now bustled with the traffic of the newly built public high school, paid for by a one-and-a-half percent tax increase on local residents. The pickup sat idling as a line of cars filled with high school juniors and seniors sped through the traffic light opposite. A car with four students drove through the intersection; one of the students leaned out the passenger window and yelled an unspecified celebration of freedom.
Blake fixated on the red light above him. The clanging of coins came from the speakers of Haley’s phone as she was rewarded with the spoils from the eighth level of Coin Wars. Another car full of students flew through the intersection, their car horn a semi-automatic machine gun blasting out ahead of them, mowing down anyone in their way. The driver of a yellow two-door car stuck his middle finger out the window, his mouth full of braces brimming as he smiled.
Haley scoffed as she put her phone in her lap; “Fuck these kids. Should have let them rot in that shithole on the other side of town.”
Blake continued staring at the red light. A text notification filled the car and Haley picked up her phone. She laughed and started texting a response. Blake turned the volume up slightly on the radio.
“It’s green,” Haley said.
Blake pressed his foot on the pedal. And with a jolt, the pickup sped off.