Technically

Short story

Empty Vision

I spent my childhood in a car. Raised by the warmth of the defroster, I'm never sure if I am in a potato field in Idaho, a swamp in Louisiana, the remains of a small town ravaged by mudslides in Connecticut, or eternally burning in a natural gas digging site in Ohio. We drive a lot, never stopping for very long.
I remember once when we stopped at a gas station on our way to Colorado, my father got out of the car in a huff, slamming the door so hard, that the head of the hula girl swaying on the console rolled off onto floor under the gas pedal, preventing the tires from squealing away from the service station--her skirt still intact. In the backseat, I slumped down as far as I could, shrinking away from his ranting. Mom glanced at me in the rearview mirror. "It's just caffeine withdrawal," she said absently, freshening up her lipstick with her left hand, while pulling the shifter into park with her right hand. We stocked up on waters and a few bags of Munchos-- paper-thin potato chips that settle on your tongue, burning your taste buds, demanding satisfaction.
When he clambered back into the passenger seat, he swiveled his head to glare back at my retreating form, the seat my only barrier. His mouth moved, but I didn't hear anything coming out. He whipped back around to fix mom with the same look, then barked, "What are we waiting for? Drive!"

I'd clear my throat but I'm afraid that once I do, I'll have to break their oppressive silence with my teeth, crunching on the glass from the window like rock candy from the Renaissance festival we went to in June. I don't look up from my daydream. The glass is in smaller pieces now but still difficult to swallow completely. I try to move it around more with my tongue, but instead it jumps out on its own accord to writhe away, out of the hole my incisors have made in the tempered rose-colored rear passenger door window. The flashing orange light warns my mother that the door isn't closed, but she understands. The road blurs as her tongue kisses an especially sharp shard protruding from the split corner of her lips. The car swerves back and forth to follow the distorted yellow markings as she speeds away, my father and I in tow.
I shuffle all the laminated glass to the side of my mouth, breathing in the vinyl, absorbing it into the Erie Canal we made a detour to see. I, for one, enjoy the sugar-coated boardwalks, the powdering of baking sugar along the beaches, the minnows running over my toes, and globs of caramel dripping off the docks. The water, saturated with purple Kool-Aid, the flavor no one likes, meets the shore at every gentle breath then pulls back for air, taking all the small fish with it.
When we get back in the car, I start to rub my feet together, trying to get all the sand off before I put on my shoes. I have always been very meticulous with the removal of each individual granule of sand, leaving nothing clinging to my damp skin.
"Try using baby powder, it will get it all off if you rub it in, and it smells good," my mom says, looking back at me.
"Okay." I take the travel-sized bottle of powder and shake it onto my legs, pushing it down to my ankles, letting it shower down off my feet to join the miniature beach I've apparently created in the Weather-Tech floor liner.
"Ugh! Look at the mess you're making!" my father says, glancing back at me. I go to clean it up. "Don't bother, you'll only make it worse," he sighs.

We are speeding now. The trees outside try to grab the car, but my mom always drives ten miles over the speed limit. "Still gives you time to slow down like they want, but you get there three minutes faster. Three minutes is a lot of time to waste watching the speedometer," Mom says.
It's actually not my mom who first said that. I can recall how my father used to say it to make her angry. He said lots of things to make her angry on our long trips.
I'm not sure when we decided to stop again, but at some point the wind ends its relentless tugging of my hair. A styrofoam cup filled with a cherry-Coke slushie mix is nestled in the crook of my knees, my hands resting on its lid.
Bored, I began daydreaming again. The straw tells me of all the adventures it hopes to have. It sarcastically asks me to lay it in the ocean, so it can see all its family. But the cup tells me the straw is simply spreading lies and wishes to hunt the sea turtles instead.
Straw taunts Cup, as layers of ozone falling on the windshield in large clumps. But my mom doesn't turn the wipers on. As the two bicker, the seatbelt holding me together seems to tighten, pulling all my fraying ends together to congregate at the bottom of my belly, ripping and tearing, not a care for my safety. Cup is too drunk to notice.
My mom peers at me through the rear-view mirror, but says nothing.
"It's best to let them work it out on their own, they'll have to learn sometime."
I definitely remember him saying that. The words fire between us as my mom and I stare at each other, the road totally forgotten in our haze of broken glass, teeth, and familial memories.
I spill the slushie all over the floor in the back as an excuse to break eye contact, not that breaking things was the problem. Again, my mom just looks back at the road that seems to have gotten shorter.
Time passes leisurely as I watch the sugary slushie mattify on the floor of the car, becoming thick and sticky. Straw looks up. Without the light in his eyes, the red of his material slowly slithers up my pant leg and transfers to the denim, giving the appearance that I rolled around in blood. I pick at the flakes of dried sugar, the red reminding me of the wad of strawberry Laffy Taffy melted into the backseat, left too long to be salvaged.

My attention drifts back to the trees lined up on the horizon, pinecone armor ready for battle. Brilliant green conifers and looming pines coat the forest floor in spindly orange needles, pulling the red from the dirt, their strength gaining in magnitude and ferocity.
The concentration of energy they extract from the ground makes the trees shudder, dropping more parasites onto the war waging between Mother Earth and her deceased spawn, shriveled but pulsing from the stolen power.

A/N
SAT man. That needs to chiillllll.