Incubator Boy

photo by Heartbeatbox.

It was what he wanted, in the end. He rode the Greyhound bus out of town to North Dakota somewhere. There was not much ahead of him, but more than enough behind him. Little boy blue, nestled in his incubator, curated by the nurses to a thing of beauty more fragile than a faberge egg. Countryside flashing past, with a steady image of his disconnected face on a palette of green. His girlfriend was back there somewhere. He couldn’t see her face. Only a smeared image now that it has begun to rain.

The bus broke down near Fargo. He stood on the side of the rode holding up an old lady that reminded him of his grandmother. Too hot in the bus. The highway shimmers and fades in the heat vapor rising off the tar. Fiberglass shattered around twisted metal frames. Covered bodies in the passing lane. Wait for the EMTs and troopers to clean up the mess, the tow truck to haul away the wreckage.

He dreamt he would have had a motorcycle by now, and not have to schlep it on an interstate bus with these people. He dreamt he would have had a lot of things by now; a place of his own, a dog, a kid or— no, no kid. Children had never been in the picture. He was too much of a kid himself, still ate Frosted Flakes for breakfast, still watched reruns of Gilligan’s Island. He had a hard enough time figuring out how to keep himself alive.

The bus pulls away from the shoulder again, the overhead air nozzle feeding a lifeline of air to his lungs. Expand, contract, expand, contract. North Dakota comes but it doesn’t take long enough, not enough distance measured in mile markers. It’s not what he wanted, in the end. Maybe he wanted mountains this stretch of his life, land masses to block part of the blue, blue sky filling the vanishing point on the horizon. Maybe he wanted straight roads replaced by switchbacks, steep descents and faulty brakes, emergency escape ramps for runaway trucks.