“Look at how a single candle can both defy and define the Darkness.” Ann Frank

The reverberation of the nighttime Cicadas began to penetrate Malcolm’s senses through the moonlit simmer. He sat up in the bed of his Pale Sierra.

…I’m taking way too long out here. I’m liable to get caught…

He finished his fifth High-Life and digested the beauty of the March full moon, Twenty-Nineteen; the moon reflected off the surface of the lake in front of him. His drunken imagination was surging his rage; like all Malcolm’s tempers, it was pervasive.

…You’re a country ape at heart Malcolm, we aren’t meant to be packed so tightly around a million strangers…

He stretched his arms out across the roof of his ghastly-pale truck and rested his flat feet as he digested the scenery. The view of the lake encompassed the gap of the open truck bed. Strands of matted, black hair veiled his swollen brown eyes. Just beyond the lake were shrubberies of twisted tree shapes, the bayou woods were only visible thanks to the lights from Lafayette. Just above Malcolm’s head, the sky was black, and the parking lot had few lamp lights.

He gathered his empty cans together and stuffed them into what room was left in the KFC bag. Malcolm leaped out of the truck bed with the fast-food in one hand, he opened his passenger door to grab a double-sealed bag of garbage and made his way over to a dumpster by the corner of the dirt parking lot. In seconds, the garbage was tossed into the rusted-steel dumpster which was almost filled to the brim. It took the might of his muscles to shift the junkpile enough to close the dumpster lid.

Malcolm entered the Pale Sierra, revved up the V6 engine and the entire dashboard lit up; both front seats were mildly withered with tears, stains, and the back seats were a clutter zone of trash. Malcolm decided he should finally quit wasting time, and he pulled out of the parking lot. He took a turn onto a windy-deserted road somewhere in Bayou Country. A white noise shimmered through his stereo before the latest CD ignited, blaring the hymns of the Danish metal band, Volbeat.

He tossed a wrapped bag of garbage through his window and the plastic bag landed in a drop-off deep in the marshes. His inebriated mindset bobbled like a toy as the Pale Sierra swerved in the open road.

“…An Outlaw Walking Through the Valley of Men...

...Glared with a Sunken Eye of Death...”

The chorus was ushered on with a return the acoustic western melody.

“…The outlaw man’s roar…”

As the song led into its second verse, Malcolm finally noticed that the CD case had nearly slipped to the floor because of his heavy swerving. Taking his eyes off the road, Malcolm leaned down to retrieve his case and slid it back into its alphabetical slot on the front console’s CD folder.

“SHIT!” Malcolm slammed on the brakes when a small Buick cut him off with a left turn at an intersection. Malcolm slammed the horn then revved past the speed limit of twenty-five miles per hour. “USE YOUR GODDAMN SIGNAL!” he screamed through the fast wind in the driver’s direction.

I guess the idiot doesn’t give a shit that the cops are out and about!

There was a ringing in his ear as he spun fast into the lane for oncoming traffic. With the lane empty, he accelerated past the Buick and his vendetta was half complete by returning the dumbass’s cutoff. To carry out one last insult, Malcolm chucked a double-sealed bag with a reverse backswing. Perfectly executed, the trash smacked hard onto the Buick’s hood. Malcolm hit forty-five on his dashboard while the Dumbass came to a screeching halt.

That ring appeared again and the familiar Five Zero Four number on the dashboard confirmed to him that he was in fact, not going deaf. Malcolm turned right at a dirty turnpike where some rundown gas station was. He picked up his phone after switching gears to park and rubbed his eyes with a set of clammy hands when no one spoke.

Malcolm stammered. “…Being the one who called first, aren’t you supposed to talk first?”

“…Well…I was worried I might be interrupting something.” Meryl finally spoke.

“Well, you’re not.” He answered, he was reaching for another tied bag as the phone was rested in his shoulder.

“It doesn’t sound like you want to talk.” Meryl complained.

Malcolm bit his lower lip as he rested on the door handle. “I wouldn’t have answered then.” He stepped out of his truck and crossed to the fenced dumpsters.

“Well, this hurts for me too, you know? Bad enough that I’m still worried for you…I called because I heard you’re still going back.”

“Heard from who?” Malcolm asked.

“Through the vine.”

Malcolm’s eyes nearly bulged. “…Was it Javier?”

“Mal. He just got married.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.” Malcolm stated.

“Is this question that important? Of all the things?” Meryl sounded shrill near the end.

Malcolm sucked his lips in. “…I’d kind of like to know why Javier is snooping around me to talk to you.”

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“It’s not ‘snooping’, Mal.”

“I just find it interesting that he was so compelled to gossip about us going back to work.” Malcolm was walking to the door, the gas station was empty except for a Haitian fella in a locked booth on front counter.

“I find it interesting that you would even summarize that as work.”

“That job I went to Candidate School for so that I could Leap Frog over Javier and the others in the Army?” Malcolm was standing at one of the cooler doors in the store and grabbed a random forty ounce. “A Career path you supported.”

“I wanted you would sit at a goddamn DESK! Or mission control-“

“Mission Control?” Malcolm gaffed. “You realize that they were never gonna transfer me to NASA, right?” He was paying at the front counter; the brain-dead clerk had a blank face while ignoring the conversation; his shitty TV was blaring something about the FBI creating a search perimeter outside Baton Rouge.

“Could we please not do this now?” Meryl asked.

“What don’t you want to do?” Malcolm guffawed, “You called me!”

Meryl gave him that sigh; that sigh that reminded him he’s fucked up. The perpetual knockback to his senses reminded him Meryl was too pure a person for him. It was beginning to aggravate him and sitting in his driver’s seat he opened the generically branded Forty Ounce.

“...What was that?” she asked.

Malcolm stammered. “From my end?”

“Yes.”

“...A Can…”

“Is it what I think it is?”

He fumbled with his keys at the ignition, knowing that it was too late to lie. “It’s the engine running.”

“Have you been doing anything else?”

Malcolm kept stammering as he pulled back out into the winding bayou. “I’m just on a drive…”

“That. Makes. It. WORSE!”

“Darling, I-“

“…not to mention scary…”

“...I need to vent...” Malcolm seethed.

She became desperate. “Can you do that without drinking and driving?”

Malcolm’s eyes almost popped. “And I’ll drink where? You know how I am around people!”

Her tone changed to a captivating sternness. “I know how you were with Nikki.”

Malcolm felt offended. “You know they’d never have been so friendly if it weren’t for the tats.”

“Or war experience.”

Malcolm almost began to shout. “They were under my roof-“

“Our roof.”

Malcolm felt a pounding in his chest. “Quit interrupting me; I was being cordial to a guest under our roof!”

She clicked her tongue. “…For you to even describe those people as ‘guests’ is so motherfucking concerning I don’t even care that you’ve evaded telling me what your else you’re doing.”

Malcolm’s mind was fogging; the second to last bag had been flung two miles back. The streetlamps were spaced out; there was enough distance for the successor lamp to appear as a misshapen humanoid. The blurry shadow of the Sierra simmered and swayed behind him and Malcolm was chugging the forty-ounce can without caring about his swerving.

“…Malcolm!?” Meryl shouted.

He was back; with a twelve o’clock position on the wheel, Malcolm perfectly corrected his alignment to the center of the lane. “I’m clearing my head.”

“How is filling your head with beer ‘clearing’ it?”

Malcolm’s nose began to flare. “I am trying to not do the wrong thing here.”

He could hear her choke up. “Neither did I Malcolm….”

The tears of his own wife hit Malcolm’s ears like a machine gun battering ram. A Murder Hornet eating through his temple and into the brain. Two cheese graters that were pressing the flesh of his checks to string. He did not know which swamp or street he was on anymore. This blackened road of Bayou Country became the same confusing maze that was his life; now everything just kept winding around him. He had forgotten how long she had been crying and never even knew if she was when the call first began.

Her faint voice picked up. “…I’ve always known that you needed somebody…just like the rest of us…”

“I don’t have to go to Leesville tomorrow.” Malcolm pleaded.

“And you’ll leave the next week!”

“We can figure it out…” Malcolm held a tear. “Emily?”

“Not that song!”

Malcolm nearly panicked. “I’m sorry! Could you just please let me come over so we can figure this out in fucking person?” He was passing through the light by the next streetlamp; the shadow was behind the Sierra.

“Malcolm. If you don’t get certified by a board of psychiatrists, then I don’t feel safe letting you be with Connor.” She affirmed with boldness.

His teeth started to grind. “...I always kept him safe…”

“I don’t want you to give our son the wrong impression of what is or isn’t dangerous.”

“This isn’t fair.” He hollowed.

“This isn’t about you anymore…please understand when Connor is with my parents.”

“And talk about what?” Malcolm was flustered. “Because it seems you’re drawing all the terms here!”

“This. Isn’t. About. YOU.”

“How about us?” Malcolm demanded.

“Until a staff of Therapists certify you, nothing. Okay? There’s nothing between us Malcolm.”

Without even hitting the End Call he flung the phone into the windshield which deflected it into the black space that was the floor. The Sierra swerved and parked beneath a streetlamp as the shadow behind the truck hit its maximum width before condensing back onto Malcolm.

He let out a screech that could not be contained by the confines of Pale Sierra. Malcolm threw the door open with the final bag in hand. He marched out with absentmindedness to the risk of snakes or gators lurking. He chucked the bag against the lamp pole, cracking and bouncing back into the ground; he kicked it to the closest tree. Malcolm leaped onto where it rolled and stomped repeatedly. His yells recoiled like a shotgun; he forgot how long it took before his boot was grinding into the pink paste of red.

Still hyperventilating, Malcolm turned while wiping the pink gristle off his boot along the way; he ignored the brownish-red stains of his pant leg. He slammed the door to his truck; however, he sat in his seat unable to start the ignition. Malcolm just started punching his own face while screaming.