From the back of the car he can see the tops of two heads. The head in the driving seat is bald and older than the other head of which all he can see is a mess of black hair.
He switches from asleep to awake then back again. It’s darker each time he wakes up. He stays awake longest when the shouting starts. He doesn’t know how the shouting started. He doesn’t think the shouting is to do with him. He hears his name a few times, but only now and then, like how every now and then he sees a dog through the window; and he knows the world isn’t about dogs.
It’s raining hard.
*
All the houses and people disappear. Most of what he can see is night; the rest is fields and rain or cars and rain. It changes if he turns his head.
The next time he wakes up, the car has stopped. The shouting is louder because the engine’s not making that rattling sound and the road isn’t rumbling anymore. Only the bald head is shouting now. The other head is crying. The person in the driving seat hits the steering wheel and the horn goes off. The sound tangles up with the shouting. It’s so fucking loud.
He has a dream about a monster that he drew on a blank page in his colouring book but never finished. He didn’t feel this scared when he drew it. It chases him through a busy shopping centre which leads out into his bedroom but it’s his bedroom with much bigger walls. It feels like Christmas.
*
A car door shuts really loud. There’s only one head in the front of the car now – the person in the passenger seat. His older brother turns round to look at him. His brother’s face looks sore from tears, his black hair is scraggly from how he’s been holding his head and he has some spit on linking his lips together. His older brother doesn’t say anything apart from sorry but that’s said in code and not words. His brother turns back around and puts his fingers in his hair like he’s trying to pull it out and cries louder. Eventually it turns into the same noise that the rain is making.
Dream/wake up. The front of the car is empty now. It was a slamming car door that told him to pay attention again. He looks out the window to try and work out what might happen now, but it’s too watery and dark to make any sense.
*
This is the part he can never remember as well. It’s still raining. It’s lighter but it isn’t bright. It’s a grey light that makes the sky look dirty. There are no other car noises. It’s cold and the windows are misty and covered in sad finger drawn stickmen. He wipes away a game of noughts and crosses that he played with himself so he can see the person who’s tapping on the glass from outside.
The man and the woman seem nice, but they’re in a hurry. He guesses it’s because they don’t like the rain.
*
Their car smells different. There’s a little cardboard tree hanging from the mirror in the front.
*
He can’t remember the dream that came after that but he’s sure he had one.
I’ve been meaning to tell you how great this is. Phenomenal, really.