Listless, I stared down a muddy and pothole filled road. It was unapologetic about its potholes, its rocks, its dirt and clay. It demanded your attention while even walking, lest it remind you not to pay attention to it. It was miserable and Fall so the road went all the way to nowhere and all you could do is drive back from from the middle of nowhere to some small thing sitting in the middle of nowhere. It looked slick, I thought. And then a voice. Then a face.

She said many true things. “You shouldn’t get yourself in trouble! No one will come to save you” and of course she was right, she usually was. “You made a mistake once, okay that’s unlucky, do it again and people will think it is your fault” which is also true as far as I can tell. In those words I knew she was saying “I care about you, I want you to be safe’ but all I could hear was about how stupid I was to need to hear this at all. There is this kid that, and I swear to god, all they do is get themselves hurt. Christ you can’t leave the kid alone, not for a second or they will most definitely hurt themselves. “That’s sharp!” you’d cry “hey kid that thing is older then both of us, stop hanging off that thing, it’ll break” but that kids doesn’t seem to care. Can’t help but feel like that damn kid when she talks to me like she did by that road. Not her fault that I can’t take a piece of advice like some damn fool.

Course now this face, this voice, and the beautiful combination that makes me fall in love all over again each day is making me dive for cover. She’s diving for another strike, duck! That’s what it seems like anyhow. But maybe that’s not true. But then again, what if it is. Does the smart man stand against this, sidestep or maybe get hit to see if it hurts. I didn’t live this long being brave, a cowards way out is still a way out and once again I am alive. I hope no one sees me. I hope live. I hope I’m not hiding from rabbits or partridges.

You know, I saw a partridge on the that road the other day and it stood pretty stultified for so long I don’t even know if it tried to avoid my truck. I drove around the little partridge, I could see the pattern on its feathers and I never saw it move. “Dumb bastard” I said as I went around the thing, as I went around another one like me. Next time I’ll just call it a poor bastard, not like I am any smarter when something is facing me down on the road. We poor bastards can live among the dirt and the sand and the mud and try not to get run over by whatever comes our way.