Fred Aiken Writing

Fifteen days stuck in traffic. Fifteen days into the seventeenth year stuck in traffic.

I’m not sure I know anything outside of these steel and fiberglass containers on round rubber. No one has come to save us.

I think any rescue efforts got stuck in traffic, too.

I keep trying to remember what my wife looked like, but I can’t conjure an image.

But I’m certain that she wouldn’t want me to leave the car.

I wonder if she moved on.

it’s very public

well known, all over town, city, village, pueblo,

photographs snapped in haste

and left even quicker

as whispers billow through the sycamore’s cracked branches

snatching up little gossip

little tidbits,

floating sand of what never seems to be forgotten

or learned to be taken for granted

as cement paves the way, wave, whisked away like so many days

passing time spent spending little secrets

reaching through the crest of time still reeling forward

but it’s already known

and out in the world,

so please don’t fret

because we know

we get it

parabolic screams added to the ether

as notations take down worried looks at the open

door creaking closed

as another night rushes out into the dawn and streaks

across the sky to acquaint itself to a

sensory deprivation chamber located 3 miles east and keep going straight