Dog Day Afternoon

         Traffic doddled along the highway on a dogs day afternoon in August. The dullness of the moment threatened to strangle my will to live. I really need a little excitement in my life I thought. These days I can barely stand the sight of myself. When I look in the mirror, into those shit brown eyes I say, “Who are you? Who the hell are you? And when are you going to start living a life?”

         All I ever seem to do these days is follow the river of bullshit that my boss throws at me, just to wind up further downstream. At home sweet home it is an overflow of family needs, ‘Honey can you do this’, ‘Daddy can you do that?’ I am a slave to the mundane mantra of Marriage and children. I am a mere serf to the government, insurance companies, and banking institutions. Give me liberty or give me death, God this feels like death!

         Taking a deep breathe of defeat I sigh, and look into my rear view mirror. Way off in the distance I see an object is barreling out of the sky towards our long line of highway traffic. “What is that thing?” I think with disbelief. The car in front of me abruptly jams on his brakes. I step on mine to avoid hitting his bumper. I swallow to keep my heart from jumping out my throat; all the vehicles around me are now at a standstill.

         Throwing open my car door I turn to get a good look at the catalyst of this action. All around me people are leaping from their cars and running for the ditch, others are mesmerized, slack jawed and frozen in place. A military jet roars toward us, “Ratata tat tat, rata tat tat” He is streaking along following the highway. Guns are flaring. People are screaming. Fire erupts as a few bullets strike the gas tanks of abandoned cars. I am in the ditch now, running, heart pummeling inside my chest. I refuse to look at the sky behind me, terrified to see the destruction of normalcy. A roar sounds above me; I glance up to see two jets streaking after the rogue fighter. I stop and watch as they send missiles after the lone jet. Instead of evading oncoming death, the single aircraft turns into the oncoming missiles and erupts into an explosion of metal bits.

         Two weeks later traffic doddles along the highway on a dogs day afternoon in September. The sun caressed my face, a sweet companion of travel. Life was good indeed, I had just received a promotion at work; boss man had noticed my good attitude and promoted me to manager. He hoped my positive outlook would influence others. I smiled thinking of the upcoming evening, mow the grass and then take the kids to swimming, the smell of fresh cut grass and the sound of giggling kids. What could be better? I turned the radio up just in time to hear the host interviewing the wife of the mad highway bomber.

         “All he wanted was a normal life,” she sobbed, “But they wouldn’t let him out of the service… He had told them it had gotten to be too much! Too much action… too much uncertainty. All he wanted was a nine to five job where he could come home at night and be with his family. Now tell me…. Was that too much to ask?”