Bob Haynes

End of the World Story

Here we are, driving our own cars in the rain. Just look at us! When we got here, sleeting rain, jeweled and hard as a silhouette, etched our windshield and narrowed to a road crew and orange cones. We were supposed to be the beautiful, rich patrons in a motorcade escorted through potholes. In the downpour, workers repair the pothole, grown hungry, with tar and bulldozers. We’ve detoured too far to drive all the way around Kansas; these Bible Belt states swallow us pagans whole. Our broken heater rattles under the dash while we slick into a single lane. This could be the end of the world, so we sing hymns with the windows down. I’m "Rock of Ages." You're "Bringing in the Sheaves." The driver behind us leans on his horn. He’s an "Old Rugged Cross."

steam-rollers paving
El Dorado, Valhalla —
roads to Genesis