Part 1: Silver Spoon
“I don’t know if I can pull off something I’ve never seen before,” he said, his arrogance floating in the air. The way he spoke almost made me regret asking, absurd as that was. He wasn’t the kind I expected. Most who stop are the weathered types—old men fiddling endlessly with cheap appliances or wannabe country boys sinking money they don’t have into their modded Jeeps. But him? He was different. Unpredictable.
He didn’t slow down much when I waved him over; just a sudden, jarring slam on the brakes, like we hadn’t been sizing each other up from a mile down the freeway corridor. Maybe he was distracted, keeping tabs on day trades or whatever other bullshit filled his glossy world. His car was sleek, undeniably so. The matte yellow Mercedes gleamed even under the haze of highway grime, paired perfectly with his long, white messiah hair. Everything about him screamed he had a penchant for his own image. Vanity. He wanted to be seen.
As he stepped out, his movements were slow, deliberate, like he was stepping onto a stage. The look he gave me wasn’t annoyance exactly, but something more dismissive, as if I’d disrupted the smooth script of his day. “What’s wrong with it?” he asked, nodding toward my car with an expression that barely masked his impatience. I shrugged.
“Just needs a jump,” I said, motioning toward the cables in my hands. He didn’t move at first, just stared at me like he was gauging whether this was worth his time. When he finally sighed and popped the trunk of his Mercedes, I could tell he’d already decided this would be a story for his friends later; an anecdote about helping the needy.
I popped the hood—“bonnet,” as I learned they call it in the UK during a forgettable summer—off my aging VW Rabbit and waved him over. His coupe remained motionless, purring softly even at idle, like a predator playing dead. All I’d asked for was a jump, but the contortion of his face made it clear: this man didn’t spend much time looking under hoods, not even his own. He countered with a ride to the nearest station, but I knew it wasn’t far, just a few minutes down the corridor. I didn’t feel like wasting half an hour running a lint roller on his white Nappa leather and suede interior.
“No,” I told him. His response wasn’t verbal, but his perturbed expression said plenty. That look, the thin blond brows knitting together, the pale skin scrunching in faint disgust, was enough to bring me to the edge. I stood there, teetering between the man I’d been and whatever you’d call the shadow of the last few years of my life. A haze of smoke and inconsequential routines, busy with nothing.
As I connected the cables, the sharp metallic click of the clamps felt like the only thing that made him flinch. He leaned against his car, scrolling through his phone, as detached from the moment as one could be. I thought of how different we were. The way he handled himself; smooth, polished, the kind of man who could glide through life without ever touching the dirt. And here I was, elbow-deep in it.
But the way his face moved, the subtle dismissal of it, sparked something. I felt it, a tide rolling in, crimson waves crashing against a slippery seawall, leaving behind a mist of ruby spray. It had been a while since I felt it, that urge. Truthfully, I hadn’t felt it in years, not even the last few runs at it. Before this, I’d been running on the fumes of keepsakes. A strand of hazelnut hair. A child’s report card held to a fridge by a cheap magnet shaped like the Copper State. The fraying polyester handle of a lunchbox, worn to the elastic.
As I told him to stay put and walked back to my Volks, I couldn’t help picturing all the doors that had swung open for him, all but too easily. His life was beyond anything I could imagine, a stark contrast to the hopeless grind I found myself in when I was about his age. I’d been dealt a 7-2 offsuit in a game of Texas Hold’em, while he seemed to be playing with a stacked deck. My shrink might call it envy, say it’s what pulled me back into my old ways, but she loves defining lives she’s never lived. Her attempts at coherence would be as clumsy as my grasp of the gilded world Mr. Mercedes called home.
Part 2: Rumination
Like your first bump of coke or the way she looks back at you sprawled on your bed, fully acknowledging with allurement in her eyes the invitation to sin, it’s one of those things that’s always nagging. Most often manifesting in the part of my mind where I try to hide a lot of myself. The part of my mind that I don’t like to admit exists. Like it or not, no one chooses their path. All that can be done is allowing reality to run its course and preparing for any fallout that might come with it. Like an H-bomb dropped over a restless city, waiting to leave its impression on the people below it.
People say that old habits die hard, but it felt too ironic of a portrayal. Like I’ve said before in previous interviews, I feel some sense of guilt now. However, I’ll remain rigid on my stance of all of this regardless of my condemnation to the needle. At the end of the day, we’re all just making the most of the madness regardless of what lies beneath. I refuse to believe otherwise.
He didn’t react much at first when I came for the first blow. Just a brief flicker, a second or two where I saw the gears in his head finally lock into place. I emerged from the back of my sedan, the part where the paint chips would peel off, and in that instant, the last puzzle piece of his understanding snapped into position. That moment when he realized you don’t need a tire iron to jump-start a car.
It’s strange how moments like that can stretch time, like pulling taffy until it’s thin enough to see through. His expression moved slowly, from confusion to fear, a flicker of something more deeply held… resignation, maybe? In those brief seconds, I wondered what his life had been like; what he had painted on his canvas. Had he been loved? Had he been hated? Was he another shadow passing through this world, unnoticed until the end? I wouldn’t have been able to answer that question, but I didn’t want to either. There’s a distance that makes it easier to do what needs to be done.
After the first blow, the silence was deafening. No screams, no pleas, just the hushed weight of reality setting in. It’s not the kind of silence that brings peace, though. It settles in your chest and lingers through the night, not letting you get sufficient sleep. I remember standing there, the tire iron heavy in my hand, my pulse steady in my ears. The tide had come in again.
There’s a place in my mind where these moments are stored, discarded like stale Polaroids tucked away in a shoebox. Occasionally, I open it late at night when the world feels still, flipping through the memories like postcards from a life I no longer recognize as my own. Why had I taken so many stories away from this world? I don’t know. Maybe I reveled in the control it gave me; controlling the outcomes of others that I never could control for myself. My boyhood offered me no control over the world I had to navigate every waking day. Constantly criticized for every step I took, the world seemed too cramped for a boy like me. I was handsome on the outside, but whatever lay within wasn’t enough for those around me. Whenever things felt overwhelming, I’d take a city bus down to Santa Monica Pier. I wanted to see the ocean, its blue mirroring the color of my eyes and the lingering feelings of childhood. The vastness and unbroken expanse of open air were strange sights for a boy growing up in a city like LA.
I can still feel the weight of that night bearing down on me, like an unrelenting wave pummeling the shore. Memories of my actions surge through my mind, crashing against my thoughts with the force of a tide slamming into a seawall, shattering any stability they once held.
There’s a rhythm to these reflections, a constant ebb and flow you might see in 70% of the world’s surface. Sometimes, they come in sharp, jagged pieces, like broken glass scattered across the floor of whatever room you found yourself in. Other times, they flow smoothly, blending into the white noise of my cognition.
I try to drown them out with distractions; music that’s too loud, conversations that never quite reach me, the numbness found in paper-rolled tobacco. Each loud note and half-heard word serve as a barrier, a temporary shield against the relentless whispers of my past. The truth is, I never escaped the crimson tide, not since I first saw it as an adolescent. It clung to me, insidious and unyielding, infiltrating every corner of my mind and shaping my reality in ways I can only begin to comprehend now.
Spending innumerable moments in a cool, air-conditioned cage, I reached a metacognitive state where thoughts twisted and turned like shadows in a dimly lit room. I’ve examined almost every turn, every dead-end in this psychological labyrinth, tracing the paths of my memories, yet I struggle to find the exit. Each corridor I navigate seems to fold back on itself, trapping me in a vicious cycle of introspection and doubt.
In quieter moments, I contemplate the idea of redemption, wondering if it might be my terminus. Billions have spent their lives loudly flaunting the notion, dangling crosses over their chests as symbols of salvation. But redemption feels cheap to me, like a holiday film with a predictable ending. I’m not sure the world ever worked that way. It always seemed too good to be true. Instead of offering a path forward, redemption felt like another mirage shimmering on the blistering roads of the Southwest, an illusion perpetually out of reach no matter how fast I drove. The heat distorts your vision, warping the horizon into a never-ending pursuit that vanishes the moment you thought you were close enough to grasp it.
The tide has come and gone many times while I’ve been trapped in this living hell. I never had a clean opportunity or the tools to carry out my vocation, but I’ve grown too weak to care. Just a dinosaur riding out his final days before the inevitable impact that would blanket the atmosphere in dust, suffocating the life from this planet. Years have passed, and the world on the other side feels as foreign to me as the chapters of my life that led me here. Artificial intelligence, electric cars, cryptocurrencies; they’re just buzzing static, like memories of a time when I thought I had control.
Each day falls into the next, like clothes tumbling in a laundromat, a monotonous cycle of survival and reflection. The outside world moves forward, evolving and changing, while I remain stuck, a past anchoring me down. I’m tethered to the mistakes I can’t unmake, the choices that continue to live and breathe with me.
The tide always receded eventually, but it never left me clean. It washed over me, taking bits and pieces, but never enough to leave me untouched. I carry the weight of each wave, the remnants of everything it brought to the shore. Each surge shapes me, molding me into something vaguely new.
Part 3: Mr. Clean
I closed my eyes and opened them up again to find myself with rolled up sleeves, meticulously avoiding stains on my new button-up. My boy had bought it for my birthday, one of the few things I still cherish from him since I lost custody. “They always side with the mother,” my legal counsel had remarked, barely masking the indifference on his face. He knew I was realizing that I shouldn’t have trusted a desperate billboard charlatan.
I call this part “risk management,” but in the world of Mr. Mercedes, it’s something akin to hedging. Nevertheless, I found myself with more work than I bargained for since he landed some well-placed scratches before he was leaking all over. I admit it now that at the time, I felt a moment of repulsion. The brevity of the ordeal left me both awe-struck and nauseous. It’s hard to grasp the speed at which we arrive to a finale until you’ve seen it up close.
The smell also can be hard to muster, like one of those tins filled with coins your grandmother left in her cabinet being opened after a decade. Once a few quarts of crimson are spilled, all you smell is metal.
I always took my time cleaning up. There was something therapeutic in the process. It wasn’t just about leaving no trace; it was about reclaiming control. Every wipe, scrub, and spray erased a little chaos from the universe. The end result soothed me, a reminder that some things could be corrected.
It was during these cleanups that my mind would wander. I’d think about my son; how he used to line up his toys in perfect rows, a tiny general marshaling his troops. The thought made me smile, even as I dragged a red rag across a slippery car door.
I think I was good at what I did too. The podcasts, morning shows, and all other forms of our shared delusion didn’t give me the moniker “Reaper” without reason. I always thought “Golden State Specter” gave a more generous serving of the mystique I thrive in, yet it might run too close to other experts in my line of work. There’s a satisfaction in knowing your name circulates in whispers, like a shadow stretching across the West.
As I packed up the last of anything tying me to this place and time, I stood back to admire my work. There was really nothing left except for the showy yellow car, a relic that would spark speculation. Many would assume it had broken down before Mr. Mercedes decided to hitchhike or perhaps wandered into the street only to be accidentally struck by a distracted motorist. It was just enough of a clue to leave people wondering, but not nearly enough to truly know if the reaper had visited. A perfect story for the morning news, shared as people sipped their coffee and planned for the week ahead.
Part 4: Sanctuary
Fourteen years without a knock on the door, and you start to get comfortable, no matter how often you remind yourself not to.
I usually left my tools behind. Disposal introduces a whole new realm of risk; one I preferred to avoid. The tide had come in dozens of times, and this method had always served me well. But when actions settle into habit, they demand less thought. Too little, maybe.
The night of the yellow Mercedes, only my left hand wore the cold, tight embrace of a faux-leather glove. My right hand was bare, gripping the metal, its covering forgotten in the dryer with the rest of my darks.
Two fingerprints and a couple of smudges tied me to six. Truthfully, it was multiples of that figure across nearly every state in the Southwest, except Utah. Utah felt too pristine, too clean to stain. Maybe that’s what my subconscious told me at least. Truthfully, I never felt the urge out there. No tide pulling me in. Just endless roads slicing through nothing, broken only by slim metal signs arbitrarily dictating your top speed as if there was much to hit. Those roads get lonely at night, and the stars, more than you’d think possible, fill the sky like a celestial collage. Growing up outside the City of Angels, I didn’t even know that many stars looked back at us.
I always reveled in the irony of calling it the City of Angels. If an angel ever appeared in LA, I doubt anyone would see it or even care if they did. Not through the thick smog, the incessant FAA-compliant lights, or the endless light pollution reflecting our mess back at us. Maybe it’s absurd to think angels would bother with a place like that anyway. “If I ever came across one, it’d be somewhere in Utah”, I often thought to myself.
My dad had taken me there as a boy, where we camped, sat by a crinkling fire, gazed at the stars, and shared stories under the vast, open sky. It offered an escape from the constant stress I felt growing up. In adulthood, after his passing, I’d driven that stretch countless times, starting on the east side of the Ten in Los Angeles and heading northeast to the city of sin. This was back in the mid-’90s, before GPS was in every pocket. Navigation was simpler then; print out directions, follow the big green signs, and hope you didn’t miss a turn.
During my last trip, after the story of the yellow Mercedes and its missing occupant had already peaked online, I stopped for the night in Vegas, as five hours of pressing the pedal was about all I had in me. I thought to myself, “They called it Sin City for a reason, didn’t they?” By midnight, I’d settled into a smoking room of a motel and found myself on the strip. I wasn’t there to gamble.
An hour passed, and I realized I’d done nothing but trace an L-shaped path through the perpendicular walkways, scanning the faces of passersby and hoping one of them, makeup-dusted and lustful-eyed, would look back at me. I knew the prices here were low; supply was high. Eighty bucks would get me what I wanted, at least, that’s all I had to give.
But that night, I finished my walk and came up empty. Not a single woman matched my energy, or maybe I was giving off too much for anyone to want to spend the night. I headed back to the motel and settled for cheap vodka instead, the kind that comes in a small, pocket-sized plastic bottle. Easy to pair with Sprite and easier to choke down.
The next morning, I hit the road before I hit breakfast. I wanted to reach Utah as early as I could. I wanted to lose myself in its landscapes, the endless expanse, the calm that hung over the open roads. By the time I reached Moab, tucked behind its dusty stone curtain, I felt the quiet settling in. A calm that didn’t feel earned but was welcomed all the same.
The drive through Utah was different from anything else. The air was drier, carrying the scent of brush and distant rain. The sun hung low, casting long skinny shadows over the rugged terrain. Each mile marker seemed to make my past feel more distant, leaving only the present stretched out before me like an uncharted map.
As I approached the outskirts of Moab, the landscape opened up to reveal red rock formations jutting into the sky like the spines of some ancient beast. The silence here was almost tangible, broken only by the occasional cry of a lone hawk or the distant hum of a passing plane. It was a place that demanded introspection, forcing you to confront everything you were hoping to forget.
I found a small diner on the edge of town, its neon sign flickering like a tired heartbeat. The exterior looked as if something had fallen out of the sky in Roswell, with its mismatched windows and weathered paint. The interior was a relic of a bygone era; formica tables gleamed under the dim lights, vinyl booths offered secluded corners, and a jukebox in the corner played obscure rock tunes that few could name. The air was thick with the scent of stale coffee and old grease, a testament to countless nights spent in quiet contemplation or fleeting conversations. I settled into a corner seat, nursing a cup of black coffee that had long lost its warmth.
The waitress gave me a nod, her eyes tired but kind, as if she understood the weight of unspoken stories carried by the patrons who passed through her door. She looked at me as if we had met before, as if I were a familiar face she had seen in her many silent exchanges with other weary souls. Maybe she had seen another man coming from the city, running from his past just as I was running from mine. Her silent acknowledgment added another layer to the heavy atmosphere, a shared understanding that in this place, everyone carried their burdens quietly, finding solace in the fleeting moments of connection amidst the loneliness.
I pulled out a crumpled map, tracing the route I had taken so far. Moab was just a waypoint, a temporary sanctuary before my inevitable return. The road ahead was winding, leading deeper into the heart of Utah’s isolation. Each bend promised new challenges, new opportunities to forget the past.
Leaving Moab, the landscape became more unforgiving. The vast desert stretched in every direction, a monochrome sea interrupted by the occasional splash of color from a wildflower or a distant mesa. The sky was a relentless blue, unbroken by clouds, as if mocking my desire for refuge.
Nightfall in Utah was another beast entirely. The temperature plummeted, and the once welcoming stars transformed into cold, indifferent sentinels watching over my solitary journey. I drove on, headlights cutting through the darkness, illuminating the path ahead with a harsh, unforgiving light. Every sound was amplified, the crunch of gravel under tires, the distant howl of a coyote, the eerie whisper of the wind through the canyon walls.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being watched, that the silence was pregnant with unseen threats. The stories my father had told me about Utah’s isolation, its capacity to break a traveler’s spirit, echoed in my mind. I wasn’t chasing a destination though; I was chasing an escape from the shadows that clung to me like a second skin.
As dawn approached, the first light of day began to reveal the true extent of Utah’s stark beauty. The horizon blazed with hues of orange and pink, painting the sky in a way that felt surreal. I pulled over at a lookout point, the vista unchanged from when my father took me here. The vastness of the desert seemed to swallow me whole, reminding me of my own insignificance. A comforting reminder.
I sat there for a moment, contemplating the road that lay ahead and the one I had traveled. Utah wasn’t just a place on the map; it was a crucible, a test of will and determination. Whatever awaited me back home, I felt the courage again to face head-on.
With a deep breath, I resumed my journey, the open road stretching out before me.
Part 5: Berries and Cream
After the prints were found, it didn’t take long until I was brought in as I had priors. I found myself in this place where the walls echo with the shouts of hungry men, each waiting for their turn, whether to walk free or feel the cold prick in their arm as the curtains open. One thing’s for sure; we’ll all leave this place eventually.
I pondered the early chapters, the ones that shaped me, and the last ones that did me in. I mulled over it all as I worked through my pound of strawberries and two cans of whipped cream, slid through the slit in the door by the corrections officer with a blank expression on his face. I could tell he just wanted to be done with it so he could go home to a smiling family.
The cafeteria was a cacophony of voices and clattering trays, but in my corner, I found a semblance of solitude. The cafeteria light flickered overhead, casting long, harsh shadows that seemed to mirror the darkness amongst us. The strawberries were fresh, their sweetness accentuated by the tang of canned whipped cream. I ate mechanically, not enjoying these last few bites the way I had expected.
My last chance at redemption came after dinner. The prison chapel was a stark contrast to the bleakness outside. Wooden pews lined the room, and stained-glass windows filtered in muted colors, creating an illusion of peace that felt utterly out of place. I sat quietly, the weight of His eyes pressing down on me, feeling utterly apathetic.
Morning came too quickly. After a warm, solitary shower, I was brought in. They told me the crowd would be larger than expected. Of course, it would be. They claimed I did at least six. That meant dozens in the audience if you included family, legal counsel, and the ones who just wanted a front-row seat to the show. Faces came together, a mix of sympathy, judgment, and indifference. Some scowled at the indifference in my eyes.
The sterile bite of antiseptic hung in the air, mingling with the sting of the alcohol swab they ran over my arm. Soon, they’d stick me, pierce me, and yet, time refused to slow as I silently begged it to. Instead, the moments blurred, speeding like a reel on fast-forward. Strangely, it brought a fragile calm. Some might call it acceptance, but I think it was just the realization that my past had finally lost its grip on me.
The needle went in smoothly, almost too easily, a cleaner finish than I’d ever provided. I’d always imagined it would feel like punishment, but it didn’t. It felt… fair. The past finally caught up with the present, dictating the outcome of everything that had led to this moment.
The tide came, this time dragging me under. My body scraped against the jagged sea floor, the crushing pressure drawing me into a dark, crimson void.
I thought about Utah. The endless roads, the jagged, alien formations rising like statues against a barren sky. The drunken chuckle of my father as he would slur together stories that were too mature for my freckled ears. Those nights were the one I cherished most, parked on the shoulder of some forgotten highway, the camper creaking in the desert wind. I feared nothing but the prowling coyotes and the erratic, zigzagging lights that cut through the blackness, teasing the edge of my sanity and making me wonder if the universe was as hollow as myself.
Utah might’ve been too pretty to stain, but this place? It was stained long before I got here.
[Image Credit : Photo by Tilak Baloni on Unsplash]
Felix Bou is a psychologist and adjunct professor based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Formerly residing in the southwestern United States, Felix draws much of his inspiration from the diverse landscapes of that region, as well as the unusual narratives he has encountered throughout his professional career.
Although Felix began writing creatively at a young age, he set his literary pursuits aside to focus on completing his doctoral training. His writing often delves into themes of crime, introspection, and mental health, often weaving his background in psychology into the fabric of his narratives.
