Davey, What the Hell Happened to You?

By Jeff Baker

The afternoon sky was deep blue as the car raced down the highway.

“So that’s it,” Davey said sitting there in the passenger seat. “It isn’t all going to end some day, it isn’t real.”

“What isn’t real,” Chuck said keeping his eyes on the road.

Davey tapped the dashboard. “This. Everything. Us. Hindus believe everything is destroyed and reborn in a cycle and they aren’t even real.”

Davey had always been a little “out there,” even a year before when he and Chuck had actually dated, but he hadn’t been this far out.

“I mean, it’s all an illusion,” Davey said. “Look, you know that speed zone sign up here past the curve?”

Chuck knew it. His Dad had called it a speed trap sign.

“Always been there, right?” Davey said. “Well, not if I don’t want it to be.”

Davey stared off into space for a moment then said “Right here.”

“Yeah, I see the curve,” Chuck said slowing down. But he didn’t see the sign. It wasn’t there.

Chuck laughed. “Yeah, they took the sign down and you’re playing it like it’s The Twilight Zone or something.”

“No,” Davey said. “It’s the nature of reality! You can control it sometimes if you’re in tune. I can do it, because I’m in tune.”

Davey stared out the window again.

“Look up there,” he said pointing at the sky.

Chuck stole a quick dance. Blue sky, some patches of grey clouds. Then he stared.

Parts of the blue sky were fading into patches of grey, not grey clouds but the grey you see when you take a piece out of a completed jigsaw puzzle.

They passed a billboard which looked like it had grey chunks bitten out of it.

The grass and trees were turning into big grey blank spaces. The car suddenly froze like it was just a big color photograph, no a black-and-white photograph.

Then the world, the stars, everything blanked out into grey. Grey and Chuck’s last echoed cry:

“Oh, Davey, what the hell happened to you?”

—end—