What Happened at Target
During the storm the lights flickered. Randy disappeared for an hour. A shelf of liquid body soap expired; no one noticed. That one lady (you know the one) returned two blouses & a Foreman grill. She had receipts. The rafter finch above soft goods shit on the nice bath mats. The Häagen-Dazs freezer decided to give up. Corporate sent too many emails about Circle bonus issues and the hiring pause. They remained unread. The generator didn't kick on when the power went out. We closed early, sat in the parking lot doing whippets while lightning did its thing & the wind sang along. Then the hail started, pea-sized & mean. I smoked a cigarette & watched it skitter across the hood. A cart made a break for it, rolled across the lot, bounced against a curb & slewed sideways. I smoked a cigarette, fell asleep. When I woke up, we were doing eighty in a sixty-five outside Lebanon, Illinois, cornfields a blur as rain drummed the windows. We passed a dairy barn. Wendy mooed & lowed & the rest of us laughed. No one remembers the crash. We stood around smoking while Randy tried to reverse out of the flooded ditch. No one could get a signal. I tried to text Drew & Nance at Fast Eddie's Bon Air. The messages didn't send. We left the car, walked to the high school, soaked. I ran out of cigarettes, somehow made it home. There was nothing in the fridge or on television. I dumped kibble in the cat's dish, took a shower, drank a warm beer. That night, I did not dream.