Beyond the Road
*For Halloween, but mainly for Dan, without whom this story would never exist, because it happened to him (with a few of my artistic embellishments). Like I said, worked real hard on this. Hope I did the vision justice. A driver drives southbound-east in a car, shoving crusty chips in the corners of his cheeks. The bag of grease lounges on the passenger’s seat and the driver dips his hand in periodically, licking vinegar crystals off his fingers from the sea-salt snack. His other hand padlocks around the steering wheel, drives onward. His glasses fall to the point of his nose; eyes fixated on the pulsing potato chips and not the road ahead—those circular discs of caloric pleasure. The fatty deposits at his sides expand his smallish figure. The groan in his belly growls deeper. The radio dial flickers neon blue and reverberates off the lens of his frames onto the road before him. He watches as the light casts its image on the lane. Not a single c