By Katie Arminie 

He always felt different, an outsider. Someone who understood life in a way others refused to or were not capable of. He was closer to work than home when it happened. He was shocked and horrified, of course, but there was an understanding of, “Here it is, “ when it occurred. An acceptance of the unacceptable.  

Lately, life had been too much even for his overly sensitive psyche. Global warming, intolerance, hate…The human race were parasites destroying everything in its path. Humanity let him down time and again. Driving on the freeway with the endless lanes jammed with man made objects, stark with an overall avoidance of nature, he thought about his day. Despite always working hard, and his longevity at his job, he still could not please his clients. It was never enough. His profession got the better of him most days. It was hard to say no or to give yourself a break when you did what he did. Negative looks and disappointed connotations crammed his brain. A dull ache pressed down on one side of his temples. 

Traffic was slowing down to almost a stop, brake lights for miles. Something was hanging from the bridge’s freeway sign up ahead. It was human size… A mannequin? Ice filled dread overflowed his heart, something was wrong. As he got closer, he could see a motorcycle on its side and two smashed in cars. No emergency vehicles were on site, it had just happened. The air was charged with it. A middle aged male driver of the destroyed black Toyota hybrid was puking out of the driver side door. The occupants of the wrecked blue Hyundai sedan: young women, were crying. His eyes darted from the crash, to the road, to the freeway sign. Draped over the sign was an ashen faced man, in his twenties, dead. His heart felt like it weighed four tons, dropping from his chest, and pushing all his organs southward towards his bowels. 

This was a normal day in Los Angeles. Terrible things happened and, often times, did not make the news. This saddened him and provoked his anxiety. After all, he was a small town boy. Back where he was from, everyone came together in celebration and in tragedy. Not here. Why did he think he could survive this place? At that moment, he realized he had to get out off the freeway and back to someplace familiar like work. It felt like the insanity of what he had just witnessed, opened a portal into another dimension, one of evil. 

Blind hysteria made the trip quick, and he found himself back at his rear corner office. HIs hand shook so hard it was almost impossible to unlock the door. Inside he sat down at his desk and gazed out the window. At least, there was nature here, small, but present. He tried to relax and sink into the view of greenery. The boy’s face kept flashing in front of his mind’s eye, gray and doll like in its lifelessness. What kind of world did he live in that a young man’s body could be thrown to his demise and cruelly displayed upon something so ordinary as a freeway sign during rush hour?

Desperate to distract himself, he turned to his email. There it was, another strike against him. Pressures of the job made coworkers turn on each other on a dime, he was no exception. The clients, too, were out for blood, they smelled weakness, fear. A high pitched, “Hee hee hee!” interrupted his thoughts. It sounded like a hyena full of blood lust. He froze, his mind was must be making it up. He was in shock from the accident. Yet, his eyes searched the twilight beyond the windows, nothing.

Then it came again from the top of the hill overlooking his wing. They were readying themselves for him, he knew without knowing. Hyenas ate everything from their kill, even the bones. He envisioned their muzzles, engorged in his blood. “Hee hee hee,” rang out like a reply. There was a group of them stirring each other up like his clients and his coworkers would. Maybe they had transformed into these powerful and ruthless animals. Again, he thought, “Here it is.” The portal was widening, fueled by his negativity and loneliness in a darkening world.