Blood positively gushed down Ray’s upside-down head and he could barely see. He unhooked his seat-belt but didn’t drop down: he was wedged in there. He spun his head around and flailed his arms, blood spattering in all directions. Then he just hung there. It was his legs. They were caught up in the folded steel. He swung this way and that, trying to free himself. Nothing. More blood came down. He strained against the metal, pushing with bloody hands. A pack of cigarettes and a lighter fell down from his pocket. He reached for them and got a blood-smeared cigarette into his mouth. He just got hold of the lighter when he threw it down again, thinking better of lighting up. Blood was pulsing in his temples and thumping in his brain. He twisted around. Then he reached over and turned the radio knob- would the radio still work?

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Reflected in the glass window of a hulking, old gas stove- swirling purple smoke, a sleeping bull-dog, a dragonfly trembling on a piece of crumpled paper. The glass suddenly shatters, the dog barks like crazy, a bloody fist unclenches and withdraws as glass shards rain down from the white rusty enamel.

Max steps out of the stove over the jagged glass, takes and uncrumples the paper, his blood dripping all over it. It’s a pencil-drawn map with a dagger outlined at the bottom. He wipes the blood, it smears across the paper. “Jesus.” He stares at his hands. Wipes them on his dirty slacks. Touches his face. Wipes his face with his sleeve. Becomes slightly less bloody. The dog stares at him. He yanks a twisted cord out of his pocket. One end he plugs into a socket in his arm and the other directly into a regular wall outlet above a dirty kitchen counter. A lizard darts down the counter. Torn, faded curtains, thin membranes sticking to the window, a desert outside with scrub and tumbleweeds.

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