The tears poured out of him, rushing down his face like a waterfall. It was so difficult to see through the salt water welding up in his eyes that continued to bubble up and roll over his bottom eyelids. The rain was pounding heavily on the roof of his old, tattered up SUV, voiding him of any vision that he may have still had left. Alex just couldn’t take it any longer.
He began screaming and cursing at the top of his lungs, pounding and slamming on the steering wheel with shaking hands. Alex sped down the barren highway trying to grasp these ideas in his head that he just couldn’t escape. The silence wavering in the air of the car was deafening, piercing through his mind. He turned the radio on and up as loud as it would go in attempt to drown out the thoughts that were raging through his head, but nothing worked. As Alex’s speed grew faster his control over the car grew worse and worse. His hands slick with sweat had trouble maneuvering the wheel as he violently swerved left and right across the dotted white lines painting the pavement.
A sign along the side of the road read “Dangerous. Construction work ahead,” accompanied by a detour sign saying to proceed with caution and take the next exit possible. But Alex knew exactly where he and his beat up car were going, and he was not stopping. His face was dry of tears. Old pictures of he and his family nervously scattered the floor and seats of the SUV. He looked down and saw one of his father holding him as a newborn baby, and the proud look of love he had in his eyes laying peacefully on the passenger’s seat. Alex looked at the picture for a split second before he furiously jerked his eyes back up to the blurry road.
Bright orange signs were whizzing past all the windows of the car, yet Alex paid no attention. Small yellow and black strings cut across the highway in the distance. As the car crept faster and faster towards the strings the caution tape finally began coming into focus. Alex heard a nearly inaudible array of beeping noises coming from under the blaring music vibrating the whole car. He then realized that it was the ringtone he had set for whenever a family member called and looked down in his lap to a screen that read, “Call from: Dad.” He looked away, and up at the fluorescent yellow horizon line. The phone had reached its final tone when something in Alex forced him to pick it up. He held it up to his hear with his doddering hand, holding his breath and biting his lip until the area around his teeth began losing its soft pink color. “Son, please come home. We read your note, we love you no matter what and nothing will ever change that. Please come home so we can see you.” The soft cry of his little sister lingered in the background. Alex dropped the phone and came to a screeching stop inches before the yellow tape.
He sat in complete silence. Alex took a look of the land around him and imagined the shards of glass and steel that would have been strewn across the black tar. He took one deep breath before exploding into violent sobs of relief. He held his head in the palms of his hands, this time filling them with happy tears. Alex was okay, and he was going home.