Drt by Eric Thomas

the end of the tunnel.  
    I got out of the car and went in, the walls were antiseptic clean. The workers behind the counter walked like mental patients, carrying trays of wadded food and paper. I bellied up to a woman working one of the registers.
    “Can I help you sir?” she said in a total monotone. The words almost ran together.
    “Can I get a Biscuit with Sausage and Cheese meal?”
    “Do you want that in a meal?”
    “Um…yes.”
    “You do want that in a meal? The meal comes with a hash brown,” she was looking over my shoulder. I turned to see if there was anyone behind me but there wasn’t. “So if you want a hash brown and a drink you can get the meal with the sandwich.”
    “Yes, I want the meal.”
    “What to drink?”
    “Soda’s fine.”
    “Regular soda?”
    “Yes.”
      She gave me the total and I paid her. Around us, people chewed in silence. Most heads were down, reading things off their phone or a bubbly yellow newspaper. The woman who took my order stood off slightly to the side, her gaze drifted up to the ceiling as if there was weight attached to the back of her head. Someone handed her my food and she set it down in front of me without making eye contact. I grabbed the greasy bag and walked out.  
    I sat back in my car and chewed in silence. Thoughts of the meeting this weekend danced in my head. Be Well. I loved the sound of those words. They played like a song, a sweet song that danced on perfumed air. I thought about how great it would be, to be well. The thought calmed me and I fell asleep in the car.  

8
    I drove to work in a reasonably fresh shirt and pair of shorts. After the indignity of being woken up in the McDonald's parking lot, I returned home. I slept a little more and dressed for work, picking the least wrinkly shirt and shorts out of the top of the dirty pile. I didn't have a lot of resources or time to do laundry back then, so trying my best to not stain clothes was about the only course of action available.  
    There were no police when I arrived back home. I was starting to blame myself more as time clicked on. Thinking thoughts such as ‘If I had just not fallen asleep on the job a couple of days ago, this would not have happened,’ and so on.  
    I had got the traffic job more than twenty years ago. The exact circumstances had dulled in my memory to be honest and the pictures looked like they were covered in cobwebs. I’d been at the network so long I scarcely had any recollection of doing anything else. Of course, I had very fond memories of my previous job. My previous job was my passion. This traffic job was my job.
    Before traffic I had worked at a sports network. I traveled the country going to various games and championships. I sat in the press box and filled out score sheets. After the game I would point a microphone at the player’s faces while they spoke to the media, and then send the tapes to whoever needed them.
    Eventually I got fired, as it is in media. Most people in radio and television have been fired an enormous number of times and it always happens when you least expect it. I held my severance check in my hand for what seemed like hours that day. It was the first time that I noticed my hands quaking; this would stick with me from that point on.  
    I missed sports. Every. Single. Day. I hated traffic from the moment I started and overnight traffic was the absolute worst. It was one of those jobs, overnights especially, that was supposed to be temporary. I had planned on doing this only in the interim while I looked for an opening at another sports station and then I could get back to my real life. I wanted to be back in press boxes, covering games, but I never got around to it.  
    At some point I found a balance in the traffic job. Balance is the wrong word. There isn't a word for accepting the fact that your worst nightmare has become Tuesday.  
    Now, I just did my job. The job was the only thing I had left. I lost track of all of my