Two Miles Away

Two miles away from somewhere one radio tower is blinking at another radio tower
and under the shade of the second radio tower, two ants carry a beautiful crumb. Three miles back a piece of blonde hair is caught in a nail in the ground. Two minutes away is an empty bag of Lays, and four feet from that is a unused condom. Three wishbones back from the condom is a
bottle that has become a shelter for a single ladybug, as the sky weeps away and wipes away on the windshield of a car. The car is being driven by a fifteen-year-old girl who is listening intently to the radio, which exudes the sound of bad pornography. One radio tower winks. The other winks back.
Meanwhile, back in the car, two impulsive moments away from the driver, a blonde girl is saying that she wishes the driver was a boy. This would be so much easier. The driver smells the unused condom in the air and wonders how old the baby is now. Maybe fifteen. She takes a sharp left and the girl falls onto her shoulder. The radio gets louder for three eighth notes, but the passenger still wants for a boy.
Two miles away from somewhere, two radio towers are making conversation. Four minutes on horseback away from the second radio tower, a car is parked in the middle of a wheat field. Two teenagers are pressed together, producing enough static electricity to light up Chicago. Well, the condom is still talking with the bag of Lays; it is busy. When the girl realizes that, she holds the boy up to the light and watches it blur through his bones. There’s some adverse activity in his brain. Way too much motion to slow down momentum. She can make a hard stop in the middle of the road, or she can speed on through. She doesn’t have much time to pick.
When the sun sets, the damage is already done, and the tampon has been thrown in the field, brooding and bloody. A snake slithers the wrong way home just to avoid it.
Eighteen years later, in a reality where the abortion is not performed: nothing is different, except this time, thank God, the driver really is a boy. The passenger smiles. One radio tower is hit by a shooting star and the other one kills itself.
In the reality where the abortion is performed; the ants carry home the crumb, victorious and gushing, to the colony. This ensues a frenzy so spectacular from the insects that the radio tower shuts down entirely. The workers go home early that night, and there is a glass bottle kissing the lips of a man around thirty. He is making conversation with the night. Upon third or fourth embrace, it starts talking back.
Somewhere in the Midwest a fox is sleeping under a plastic bag, and it is warm and dry, unlike the ladybug, which has now abandoned the bottle for bigger and better things.
In the backseat of the car, the sharp left of the driver has left me unbalanced, and I forgot to put my seatbelt on. The sounds of pornography on the radio get quieter and quieter as the driver imagines a world where none of this happens