Things finally started to feel okay after I stole the car, paid twenty dollars for a Slurpee and vowed never to wear shoes again.
The luxury car was left running outside the mega church when I happened upon it after deciding to walk to work at Walgreens instead of taking the bus, a walk that would have taken six hours.
I wanted to be a physicist because I understand all the invisible things that happen to make the world work, so I like to spend a lot of time walking and thinking about those things.
Prior to that moment at the mega church, I felt like the invisible things were conspiring against me to make my life slowly unravel into a waste product, a feeling that became all too overwhelming yesterday when I had to put my dog, Samantha, to sleep because her tiny organs were done working right.
But when I saw that luxury car, under the large cross, I thought it might be an apology, from the invisible things, for what they did to Samantha, which is why I put the seat belt on, real slow, waiting to see if they would stop me.
They didn’t stop me, so I drove out of the church parking lot, like I was just a normal believer in God, in Phoenix, Arizona, who drove a luxury car.
When I noticed a twenty dollar bill folded up under the handbrake, I decided to stop at a 7‑Eleven and get a Slurpee because I had always wanted to give an unfulfilled employee a crisp bill and say, “keep the change,” which I did.
With the Slurpee still too cold to drink, I pressed play on the stereo and right before the most beautiful song I ever heard came out of the speakers, the digital letters said, Andrea Bocelli, Con te partirò.
The way that man sang, in Italian, I think, sounded like he too was breaking apart because of Samantha’s departure.
After listening to Con te partirò twenty times, I drove into the desert, turned up the song really loud and sucked up the Slurpee until my brain felt like it was in a vise grip that was squeezing out everything that wasn’t beautiful, leaving room for only Samantha and Andrea Bocelli.
Since the car was waiting for me under a cross, I thought I should do something like Jesus, so I walked into the desert barefoot, with the car door open, as Con te partirò blasted, and I felt no pain from the emptiness in my heart or from all the pointy things that were cutting into my feet.
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Brian Rawlins, a WGA screenwriter, has co-written a thriller movie, Blumhouse’s UNSEEN, and sold a horror project to Paramount Pictures. He has also written and directed a dark comedy short film PENNY & PAUL, which was an official selection at Academy-Qualifying festivals and won multiple awards, including Best Short, Best Actor, and Best Screenplay. Another one of his dark comedy short screenplays, NEW WORLD, won the Austin Film Festival. In addition to screenwriting, Brian loves prose fiction writing. He likes to write about emotionally volatile characters pushed to the edge. His work is driven by a fascination with guilt, trauma, power, and survival in contemporary America, often expressed through a darkly comic lens.