And the Mountains Shall Labor and Bring Forth . . .

prologue (end)

Thunder stops his heart and the burst of lightning shatters the world. He hears the science-fiction arc of lasers, and the second wave hits this time with less force and more surprise. The rain and wipers enter their on-going authorship / erasure, giving each other meaning against the clear and uninvolved windshield. He leans the wheel harder to the left as the wind picks up and the ground swells beneath him. The darkness, which was the horizon, brings night to this afternoon. Thunder cracks again and the lightning brings the cabin of the car into clear relief. The dark dashboard wraps itself into the doors, and the gauges spike into redzones and maximums, and the road is silence and the air is silent and the rain is the world, and he is in the palm of the world’s hand. At this moment there is no word and he knows the future has past. He thinks clearly, though not in any kind of language, I am in hell and I am hell. And the lights on the control panel go dark and the gauges never existed, and the thunder crashes in his chest and in his head and in his gut, and the lightning is his spine as the ground crashes all around him, spraying mud and glass and grass and plastic, and the palm of the world balls into a fist, and what was once the brandnew Jetta, and what was once the old green Jetta, and what was once the safety of a 3,230-pound mass of modern industry washes up against a series of trees and comes to a rest.