Where No Shadow Stays

The trees sway toward the empty highway, forming dark parentheses on either side of my car. Clouds swirl overhead, thinning the farther I get from the center of town. The university sits at the westernmost border of Ward, only a hundred yards or so from crossing into the next town over.

I eye the leaning trees. No way those trunks are structurally sound.

It looks like a single ambitious squirrel could break most of them in half.

I can’t imagine how Baba drives on this highway at night, nothing but his headlights to spear through the dark of the surrounding woods.