Sign Here
By Eric Balaz.
I am walking down the road and I see a sign and it says 4.5 miles.
I ask the sign “What is 4.5 miles from you” and the sign says “4.5 miles.” This is true I think, but not the answer I am looking for. I tell the sign “Don’t get smart with me.” It says 4.5 miles.
I dig up the sign and bring it with me so as to put it 3.5 miles from something thus teaching it a lesson. But every time I try and get close to a restaurant or a hospital or a landmark of some kind it always stays 4.5 miles from me.
I am a stubborn man so for weeks and even a month or two I try and teach this sign a lesson, but I always fail. Until I am walking through a field and a hummer pulls up to me. The hummer is full of ten men, each with 27 beers and must be a part of a tribe because they are all chanting and all have tattoos of black lines that I can’t decipher. The chief asks me “Where can I find the nearest liquor store.” I say to him “We are in a field.” He says that I am lying because of the sign. I tell him that I speak the truth. But he doesn’t believe me and is quick to anger.
Out of the hummer he comes and hits me over the head repeatedly with a tire iron. And it hurts, but after awhile it doesn’t any more. And he says “O.K.” and drives away and finds his liquor store 4.5 miles away.
Now I am bleeding profusely from my head. I lie down and get ready to die because that’s what you do when all your blood leaves. It takes awhile and I start to get bored.
I dip my finger in to the pool of blood around my body, causing a tidal wave for all the bugs and small animals going for a swim and I draw on the sign “Hospital here.” I pass out.
When I wake I’m in a hospital and the sign is nowhere to be seen.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Eric Balaz is a college student, living in Chicago. He considers himself to be a Romantic Nihilist, which shows through his works and all share a similar tone of disillusionment and hope.
First published in 3:AM Magazine: Monday, September 6th, 2010.
