On that road, dust squalls swirled in the headlights and flew up the windshield like ghosts. They flew up the rusted-out holes in the floor, holes I’d seen when we first got in at dusk but could only feel now tunneling in wind and dust. Back at the lot, I thought the car might not even run. There was no keyhole for the ignition, just a couple of craggy, frayed wires poking out of the steering column like a doll whose stuffing is exposed. When the driver got in, he instructed a few men to go around to the front, and once their hands were on the hood, he pumped the gas and touched those frayed wires together as the men pushed the car backward, and the engine rumbled to life. We were off, dust pluming.
The car was packed. I sat in the middle row between a girl from training and two men, one young and one old. The old man kept falling asleep on my shoulder, but he was so old and frail I thought I shouldn’t mind, and besides, in such close quarters, you had to go a little numb; you had to pretend you no longer felt the whole car shaking or the mangy upholstery or the chicken beneath the seat feathering against your ankle. I had this sense that everything barely held together, that if the frame cracked in half or a wheel flew off, I shouldn’t be surprised. Still, I wondered what kept it all together, what wire thread or bolt, what kind of chance, or god, if a god was even there.
Read “Oranges” in full here.