By Madeline Sexten-Yeatts
Seventy-seven miles per hour with the windows down. His thin lips barely held to the cigarette he was nursing. His last smoke. We were quitting and we were antsy. The wind was tying my hair into knots and the beginnings of a tan were just creeping up my right arm. I pointed feebly at the fields and the cows that dotted them, grazing and lazing in the remaining warmth of the setting June sun. I wanted to join them. The ride was smooth and silent. Maybe our wheels weren’t even touching the pavement. We drove until night and kept going. I fell asleep for I don’t know how long. I woke up to the front of the car crushed and my legs pinned. The impotent air bag on the driver’s side was still neatly tucked inside the steering wheel. I had begged him to get it fixed. There was a fence down and some cattle had gotten loose. I couldn’t make myself look and I didn’t want to; I knew. I called an ambulance and lit a cigarette. Not my last smoke.
About Madeline Sexten-Yeatts
Madeline has been writing poetry for years and is beginning to dabble in fiction. She has always loved to read, and writing is a natural offspring of that love.