Locals came by the little store on the fringes of town to buy a glass bottle of coke and some peanuts, or maybe a pack of camels, because they felt like they ought to buy something to make it look like they stopped for a real reason. Menfolk stood side by side, smoking, talked up death in low bass tones, avoided looking at the wreckage. Women and children met it head on, talked with exclamation points, and speculated on impact. Just above the site under lights on tall black poles, local spirits gazed, knowing a few pilgrims would join them soon. A steady stream of people, a tributary swelled with loss, each small group making thin talk each one taking up where the other left off ready to run if offered a turn at the wheel.
Every tired nerve begins to want a pillow.
My hand reaches to hush the sterile voice with its steady whine of politics, taxes, car wrecks, fires. So the sudden bulletin charges through me static electricity in quiet. Until the body was found by a stranger, for days his mother grieved went looking, cursing silence. I walk up the stairs to my daughter's room search for her warm body in tangled covers on the muted bed. I gather her close, feel the sour breath of news prowl like some mythic raptor hunting for small game.