Everyone You Know Comes Back to You

Trees crowd the narrow two lane highway. The road shimmers after the night’s rain. My head feels light, as if hungover from a restless night. A yellow strobe light of a pickup on the shoulder flashes. I call out over the walkie-talkie to Steven, my coworker, as we stand along the road.

He complains that I kept him up all night. He says I was talking crazy. He’s in his first year, and wary, but I know we must get along. We are flaggers, waiting to control traffic when the highway becomes a one-lane road.

I tell him something’s wrong; I just know. The stop side of my traffic control paddle has taken on a strange shade of red. The road signs we’ve set up on the shoulder are all leaning to one side.

He says it’s a change of weather.

I say it’s something else.

The foreman tells us a work truck is broken down, but he tells us to wait. He looks like an old friend. The power line he’s going to bury looks like a snake.

Steven complains that we’re standing in the rain, but I keep my complaint to myself.

A blue car crawls along the road. An arm reaches out the window and waves. The next moment it’s gone.

Could it have turned down a side road?

A plain-looking lady walks barefoot in a gravel parking lot for a bar, picking up scraps and tossed cans. She turns and smiles at me. She looks like my ex. The windows are boarded up. She says come in for a drink some time.

Dark clouds lazily swirl over the crowns of trees. The wistful sun peaks out from the haze.

The co-worker’s voice crackles over my walkie-talkie that every road looks the same.

I’m not so sure about this one. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I hope work is cancelled so I can go back to bed.

Every few minutes the blue car passes, and I’ve yet to see the driver’s face. And every car looks familiar.

Haven’t we been here before?

Today’s the first day.

The cell phone rings and stops. The call log says a week ago when I was home. The lady at the bar waves at me. I call out on the walkie-talkie that I know this lady from somewhere, pause, and add she looks like my ex.

Steven says I’m talking crazy again.

The foreman tells us that work’s cancelled, and I pick up the road signs, now in reversed order.

The blue car appears at the bar, and the lady runs to the car.

Did it come from the side road?

A faceless man gets out of the car by the bar. She runs to him, and they hug. She still looks like my ex. In a moment, they’re gone.

How can this be?

Steven taps his fingers on his leg as I drive us back to the hotel. We’re free to do what we want, but my thoughts haunt me. He looks at me, as if I’m not here.

He says I was calling out the name of a woman last night, saying she left me for another. Wearily, I nod my head. There’s the sound of a woman’s laughter. I look around, and to see it’s only Steven and me in the company van.

I look at him and say I can’t get her out of my head and add that she was a bartender.

He shakes his head in disbelief, and I look through the windshield, streaked with raindrops, and the landscape shimmers.

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