ROCKETING NORTHWARD

By Ben Greenman

from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

Twice within a few days the intersection of Kick Street and Logic Avenue has undergone the mortification of a major accident. Three lives have been lost and seven people injured between them, the first being a simple if strange matter of a man suffering a major heart attack behind the wheel and speeding headlong into a brick wall, crushing the front of his car flat, the second the strange accident of a tractor-trailer packed with chickens and ping pong balls (an earlier truck had broken down, necessitating the unconventional double load) blowing a front tire in the 4100 block of Logic and skidding sideways, where it was split in half by a beautiful vintage convertible sports car rocketing northward on Kick. The truck driver was thrown from his cab and impaled on a stop sign that was being serviced at the time, though it was not involved in the accident in any matter. The law provides for a thorough sifting of the causes of such a serious traffic mishap. That now commences. It is worth noting that the convertible was traveling so fast that it passed cleanly through the crash scene, obtaining not a single scratch. Hours later, the driver coughed up a chicken feather, a fitting punctuation to the tragic day.