I can make out in the Corolla's back window, through what looks like frost but couldn't be (it's just so fucking HOT) two figures in the front seat.  Well, rather, I see just the heads, passenger facing rightward, mouth moving, driver seemingly facing up, no discernable motion.  I wonder if they knew they were sitting on the last, curvy leg of an offramp, lights off, and constantly at risk of being rear-ended.  I motion to exit the car, to give warning or rebuke, but a strong, boney hand, like Death, restrains me at my wrist.

"Leave be. You don't know the kinds of zombies this place attracts."

A flash of memory.

I wonder...

"Just drive around them," the old man continues, "Circumvent, boy."

I comply, slowly, and as I pass, I peek past the old man and see darkness through the Corolla driver's side window.   Smoke seeps out through its tiny cracks, in front of a sillhouette I might've known from a dream long ago.

"I know them."

"Sure you do. But so what?  You going to let your past distract you?  They've got other paths.  You have your own."

I push the gas in begrudging agreement, and start for the strip.  I look back, and see headlights turn on, an engine revving beyond my field of vision.

Cecelia Livingston couldn't remember what she was supposed to be doing here, 12000 feet above God knows where, air rushing up past her faster than she could breathe it.

She just wanted to stop.  She saw glimpses of scenery through her intermittent blinks, afraid to keep her eyes open despite the goggles, despite the splendour surrounding her.  Fuck splendour Angelica thought, but still she took glimpses.  She just wanted to stop.  She had a camera.

10,000 feet now, or was it 1,000. 

"Fuck it." She fumbled for the pullstrings attached to her pack and pulled them both, not caring to recall which was supposed to be first or only.  Her parachute unfurled around her flailing blond hair and caught the wind, jolting her to a stop. 

She gasped for breath and coughed as the thin air burned her lungs. She smiled and wiped the tears from her face with her gloved hand and reached into her jumpsuit pocket for the camera. 

The sun was setting, a huge orange thing turning red in the horizon. It swallowed the plane that had dropped her here, as she pointed the camera at it and whispered, "Smile". She knew the picture wouldn't come out, but she still wanted something to remember it by.

Who knew if she'd ever see that plane again? 

Cece pointed the camera down, at the city approaching her feet, looking like a miniature circus.  A flickering light at its outskirts to the east caught her eye. She panned over to it to see the first light of the city as the sun made its westward crawl, leaving it the brightest thing in the world right now. 

 An angel, kinkily dressed.

Cece laughed, and knew she was where she should have been.

"If you miss who you were, and where you've been," The old man starts, pulling out a cigarette. He pauses to light a succession of matches, each short-lived flame lasting only long enough to emit the familiar sweet stink of sulfur.  He finally gets one to light and precariously draws it to the tip of his cigarette. He takes a deep drag and coughs as he exhales, putting the match out at the same time. The cough gives way to a hacking laugh, and subsides in a rhythmic, giggling wheeze. "This is the best place to forget."

The smoke fills my car in little bursts from the old man's lungs and smells like rusted pipe.  It stings when it enters my nostrils, and I start to feel sick.  The sulfur was better.

"Sounds good to me."

The I-15 spits us out onto the strip at 70 miles per hour, and I screech to a surprise spot 6 inches from the back fender of an '86 Corolla.

For the next couple hours, I concentrate on a spot of my window that is an imaginary continuous line of the road that is a half-reflection of my worn face that is a little speck of dirt out of thousands that is a bead of fog that is a gradual ache in my left shoulder that is an unscratchable itch on my right ear that is an old man snoring like he was pretending, that is an ebb and flow of violence and peace, that is.

"You better stop that right now."

"Stop what? Go back to sleep, you're dreaming."

"Your mind is racing."

"And how would you know what my mind is doing?"

"How do you think?"

"Um."

"The next act is to begin.  For that, you gotta stop."

"What act?

"Ssshhh."

A glimmer in the distance co-opts my attention.  Over the horizon, a tiny figure.  First an unmistakable halo.  Then a shape, winged.  Then a field of lights surrounding it over the plane of the horizon.  Then an even tinier sign.  Squinting, I can make out the words:  "Forgive yourself..."

I scratch the itch, and rub my shoulder.  I look to the fool who is asleep again.  I look back to the vision. 

The words expand, come into focus, revealing under them, in a bulbous, strobing neon font: "...Later." 

My eyes adjust to the light, and unsquinting, I see the angel better.  She is in a bikini, her face pouty and winking. Under her, the horizon reveals another much larger sign.

"Welcome to Las Vegas," I whisper.

The stranger snorts, and states clearly, surprisingly undrowsy,  "Just drop me off there."

"Hey, you know what, let's go find it, then."

"What?"

"Your soul."

"That's ridiculous.  There's no souls left anymore."

"Well, that's all a matter of perspective."

"Isn't everything?"

"You're right."

"Really?"

"You HAVE lost your soul."

Cheeky old fool. 

"Who's to say such a thing ever existed, even?"

"Ah, so YOU'RE the existentialist, I see."

You don't see shit.

Actually, I know where my soul is.  As stupid and naive as it sounds, even to me, she's sitting somewhere out East, forgetting me.  This is no self-pity, no poor-me bullshit.  This is the truth.  And don't go thinking you know what it is I'm talking about.  You may think you do, but you don't.  You're just a blind man walking alone in the world.  This means you're stupid.  Even if you weren't blind, you wouldn't see.  And like you walking toward the sun, we are all of us just looking for warmth, something, anything that feels like comfort, or power, or God.  Stupid.  I'm stupid to have picked you up.  Here, on my own blind ride. 

"I guess."

I turn on the radio, and turn the volume down slowly, until the static is at a comfortable level.  The old man doesn't say a word, and puts his feet up on his part of the dashboard.  I sigh, and white noise drowns us out.