R. C. Weissenberg
I parked by the store to see the graffiti, but was drawn to a shopping cart that had crashed into the wall. One of the back wheels was lifted off the ground and seemed to be spinning.
I stared at the wheel for a while. It should have stopped spinning by now, I thought. Then I heard it.
Push me, it said, only your hand…this wall is not real…there…to the abyss…push…your hand…
The cart was smashed against a mural of roses shaped into a skull. The longer I stared, the more the flowers looked like flames. And I could feel it burning.
I drove away and fled the heat, my shirt soaked in sweat.
The cart’s pleas, real or imagined, gnawed at me. The way the words were spoken, stilted and stuttering – these sonic scraps clawed at my brain. It was like a song screeching in your head, the more you try to forget it, the more persistent it shrieks. I don’t know why the mind works like that, but mine’s worse. Tell me something terrible and I’ll think of it forever.
I never want to go there again, but I’m going there now. I’m an idiot. I just hope the cart’s been taken away, that the wheel has at least stopped spinning. But even if it’s gone, something else will speak to me, I know it.
***
R.C. Weissenberg is a writer of various things, who spends most of his time in the Southwestern United States. He enjoys sketching, playing guitar, and reading obsessively.