Asphalt Zirconia & Eight-Bit Invaders by K. Packman

"Giant Ant" © Kirrie Rodgers

I’m doing eighty on the one-ten; an act of rebellion in what’s normally an unforgiving artery. Downtown’s fading behind me. It’s taken enough tonight: forty-eight ninety-three in drinks, two-fifty for street parking, and the gratuity: my passenger side window.

How many scratches does a beat-up 2015 Nissan need to deter this kind of thing? Nobody but the auto shop is turning a profit on this smash-and-grab.

I think about screaming, but I don’t want to wake the neighbors sleeping on the overpass. Instead, I roll down all my windows and let the city run her dusty fingers through my hair. The whipping wind cancels out whatever’s on the radio and the blue-green diamonds in my passenger seat glimmer beneath the crane-necked streetlights.

I take my exit and bask in the intersection’s empty red, the uptick of gas prices, the golden arches. LA’s at its best when it’s too cold and tired to beg for attention.

I admire the gallery of faded roll-down door graffiti as I circle the block once, twice, three times before giving up and parking in someone else’s driveway. The pavement’s still giving off heat. A police chopper shudders overhead. I avert my gaze and give it the finger; they’ll be just as helpful with the smash-and-grab as my shitty insurance.

I punch in the entry code to my concrete gentrifier box. The keypad buzzes rejection. I try not to take it personally.

There’s been another break-in: a line of ants like a crack in the floor marches from one corner of the apartment to another. I follow the eight-bit parade into the kitchen and watch them stream out of the shocked face of an electrical outlet. I have questions, but they’re all in halftone comic book flashes: ZAP! Pow! Huh?!

I’m out of ant bait. I consider vacuuming them up, but I just caught a nasty spider in it yesterday, and I’m waiting for it to starve.

I chug a glass of chalky city water and flop face-first onto my bed. I plug in my phone and take a hit from my pen. The first cloud’s sneaking through the open window when my phone buzzes back to life.

Three missed calls. Three voicemails from the ex. I hit play on the first one.

She says my name, says it’s her like I don’t know. Asks a question, follows it up with something that sounds like an accusation. The words are blurring together in a technomumble. I bring my phone closer as the helicopter circles back overhead. The searchlight turns my cheap plastic blinds into a series of pale yellow stripes on the opposite wall.

I start to feel weightless. As the beam lifts me through my window and into the starless smog, I breathe the bitter night air and let go of my phone. It lands on top of a palm tree before slipping downwards and out of sight.

I’m gonna beg them not to send me back.

ABOUT:

K. Packman is a multi-hyphenate creative from North Carolina who writes at the intersection of the whimsical and political. After a few years in LA’s entertainment industry, they are now pursuing their MFA in Creative Writing at the American University of Paris. Current projects include Shakespeare’s Rejects open mic series and a novel about a coven of Appalachian witches who provide reproductive healthcare under the guise of a taxidermy shop. kendallpackman.org

WRITER'S SONG PICK: City Limits - Cursing