The Man on the Horizon

[Victor Dandridge]

“There’s a man on the horizon,” I say, my voice jutting over the blare of alt-rock and hip-hop as Jake, Rog and I head west one last time before graduation sets us on the rest of our lives.  “Hehe – I told you he was holdin’ out on us,” Jake snorts, twisting around to spy me from the passenger seat and pointing a mockingly suspicious finger while quizzing which narcotic I’ve ingested.  But I was stone-cold sober and over the next few hours, I watched the impossible: we never passed him; even as we traveled more than a hundred miles, still the man lingered on the horizon.  Unaware that I had drifted off, Jake jostles me from sleep asking, with a laugh, if I could still see the man on the horizon.  With eyes now wide, I reply in a fear-soaked, rasp of a stammer, “No…he’s right beside me.”  The car crashes.