The Long Drive Home (Homecoming)

Hello All:

Let's see what awaits Alex as he makes the agonizing choice to comply and the Trailblazer begins its long journey back south.

The Long Drive Home (Homecoming)

The air inside Alex's sedan was suddenly stale, choked with the metallic tang of fear. Silas’s grip on the door handle was decisive, a cold, final punctuation mark to Alex's desperate flight.

"Good choice, son," Silas rumbled, pulling the door open. The interior light blinked on, revealing the grim set of his jaw and the almost indifferent weight of the shotgun. "Now, slide over. Billy's driving your little car back."

Alex’s muscles felt frozen, the adrenaline having crystallized into a sheath of terror around his bones. He complied, fumbling the seatbelt release, and slid across the center console. The scent of Billy’s unwashed denim and stale tobacco filled the small space as the older brother squeezed himself into the driver’s seat.

"Out, Alex," Silas ordered.

Stepping out, Alex felt the cold asphalt through his thin shoes. The sound of the interstate traffic was distant, background noise to the savage, sputtering purr of the Trailblazer, which sat like a waiting beast, its headlights still blinding.

"Get in," Silas commanded, gesturing toward the SUV with the shotgun’s muzzle. "Ray, you sit back there and keep him company."

The Trailblazer’s passenger cabin was a nightmare of compressed humanity and odors—oil, dirt, stale sweat, and something faintly musky, like decaying leaves. Alex was forced into the middle seat of the bench, trapped between the door and Ray, who settled in like a massive, silent bodyguard. Ray’s elbow, thick as a grapefruit, was jammed into Alex’s ribcage. Ray's eyes, small and dark, never left him.

Silas climbed into the driver’s seat. He didn’t bother with a seatbelt. Billy, having already disabled Alex’s car by pulling a wire from beneath the dash, trotted over and slid into the front passenger seat.

"Let's go home, boys," Silas said, his voice laced with grim satisfaction.

The Trailblazer roared to life, its engine shaking the chassis, and swung wildly out of the truck stop lot, Billy leading the way in Alex’s silent, stolen sedan.

The drive was pure, sustained psychological torture. For the next twelve hours, Alex was held captive in the metallic shell of their rage and resentment. He wasn't allowed to speak, move, or even sleep.

Silas set the emotional tone. He didn't rage or yell; instead, he spoke to Billy about Alex, referring to him only as "the boy" or "the mistake."

"The boy thinks he's special," Silas drawled, glancing into the rearview mirror, his eyes meeting Alex’s for a chilling second. "Thinks those city books and fancy clothes mean he's too good for Darla."

Billy chuckled, a wet, rattling sound. "He thinks he's smarter 'cause he can talk real quiet. But you and me, Dad, we know the score. Loud ain't the same as fast."

Ray, meanwhile, maintained a terrifying stillness. He didn't need to speak; the pressure of his elbow, the heat radiating from his large frame, and the occasional, deliberate bump he gave Alex served as constant reminders of the physical force ready to be unleashed. The tire iron was resting casually on the floorboard near Ray's foot, a mute witness to the power dynamic.

Every few hours, they would stop for gas and something called "pig sticks" from a roadside convenience store. At these stops, the ritual was always the same: Alex was ordered out, Ray standing close enough to breathe down his neck, and the Trailblazer was never out of sight. They didn't even bother to handcuff him; their overwhelming presence was restriction enough. Alex noticed that Silas never, for a second, released the shotgun, which he would rest on the hood or hold across his chest even while pumping gas.

As they moved deeper south, the landscape changed from the familiar interstate scenery to the winding, shadowed back roads of the mountains. The roads grew rougher, the cell service faded to nothing, and the Trailblazer seemed to come alive in its native element, navigating the curves and potholes with brutal efficiency.

It was during the tenth hour, somewhere deep in the dawn-lit hills of their home state, that Alex found a sliver of hope.

"We ain't never gonna lose this Trailblazer, boy," Ray suddenly muttered, his first words of the entire journey, his breath hot on Alex’s ear. "It's got a spirit. It knows the way home better than any man."

Alex swallowed, his throat dry. "How did you find me so fast? How did you know I drove north?"

Silas barked a short, rough laugh from the front. "We didn't know you drove North, son. We knew you drove away. And that Trailblazer," he patted the dashboard with a gloved hand, "it don't got no new fancy GPS. But we got something better. When you were on the interstate, you flashed your high-beams at us, didn't you?"

Alex's mind raced back. No, he hadn't flashed them.

"We didn't need to be there for the whole trip," Silas continued, enjoying the moment. "We just needed a moment. A signal. We tracked your car for a while back on that interstate, son. And we put a little… something… on the undercarriage. A bit of old metal, magnetized. Sends a faint signal when it's under load. But it needs a jump-start. Needs a good flash of light to boost the signal for a second."

Alex felt a cold wave wash over him. His memory was scrambled from fear, but he remembered the constant flashing headlights of the Trailblazer behind him. They hadn't been trying to blind him; they had been charging a primitive tracker.

The terror now became an intellectual dread. These men weren't just brute force; they were clever, utilizing their knowledge of the backwoods, old technology, and their own ruthless paranoia to create a perfectly executed trap.

They finally pulled off the main road, navigating a treacherous, muddy track until the familiar, ramshackle shape of the house appeared in the gloom. The Trailblazer rumbled to a stop.

Alex knew this was his last, best chance to gauge their security. His life depended on remembering every detail.

"Get out, boy," Silas said, opening his door. "You got a lot of talking to do."

As Alex stumbled out, his legs cramped and useless, he saw Darla standing on the porch. She wasn't crying or relieved; her face was blank, her eyes holding a strange, hard defiance. Behind her, his small leased sedan was parked haphazardly, already a silent prisoner.

Silas walked up to Alex, the shotgun now resting heavily in the crook of his arm. "Your wife's been worried sick," he said, the lie tasting like ash. "Now, we’re gonna sit down, and you’re gonna tell us exactly what you were planning to do with our grandbaby's future."

The moment was silent, heavy, and absolute. Alex was home. The game had just moved from the highway to the living room, and the penalty for losing was about to be much, much higher.

The Long Drive Home

Hello All:

Continuing on from yesterday, this is where the terror truly begins. The initial flight is over, and now it's a confrontation.

The Long Drive Home

The sight of the Trailblazer was a physical blow, punching the air from Alex's lungs. He didn't just push the accelerator; he rammed his foot through the floorboard. His small, leased sedan, built for fuel efficiency and quiet compliance, strained against the demand, its engine whining desperately. The needle on the speedometer climbed past ninety, then ninety-five.

The Trailblazer, however, was built not for speed, but for brute, relentless tenacity. Its ancient V6 engine, now liberated by the missing muffler, screamed a predatory roar that devoured the distance. Alex glanced in his side mirror. Silas was driving, his face a grim mask of righteous indignation. Billy, in the passenger seat, was leaning forward, mouth open in a silent shout. Ray, in the back, held something dark and long—it looked suspiciously like a rusted tire iron.

How? The question screamed in his mind, overriding the noise of the chase. He had driven for twelve hours, taken circuitous back routes, and used a leased vehicle with non-local plates. He was a ghost in the system. Could they have simply guessed his destination, or did they possess some twisted, almost supernatural connection to their runaway kin?

The Trailblazer pulled into the lane beside him. For a sickening moment, the two cars ran parallel at nearly one hundred miles per hour. Silas didn't look at him; he didn't need to. His eyes were fixed on the road, his entire posture a picture of cold, determined justice. Billy, however, turned his head and offered a wide, wet grin, rapping his knuckles sharply on the glass.

Alex swerved back into the right lane, narrowly missing a slow-moving eighteen-wheeler. The Trailblazer followed without hesitation, immediately dropping in behind him, its battered grille—the vehicle's ugly, grinning face—filling his rearview mirror. The constant high-beam flashes started, designed to blind him, to disorient him, to force him into a mistake. The roar of the engine, the blinding light, the sheer, inescapable proximity—it was a sensory overload designed to break his will.

He gripped the wheel, sweat stinging his eyes. He had to separate them. He saw a highway sign: Exit 12, Truck Stop and Services - 1 Mile.

It was a desperate risk. Pulling off the interstate meant slowing down, giving them a guaranteed advantage, and putting himself in an enclosed space. But the wide, open road gave them the ability to use the Trailblazer's weight to corner him.

He slammed the indicator on and cut across two lanes, diving onto the exit ramp. His car shrieked in protest, tires gripping the sharp curve. The Trailblazer followed, its suspension groaning, but holding true.

The ramp emptied into a vast, mostly empty parking lot surrounding a neon-lit truck stop. Alex made a sharp left, driving frantically between the rows of parked tractor-trailers. The roar of the Trailblazer echoed loudly off the metal sides of the rigs, an undeniable signal that the pursuit was still on, still right behind him.

He saw his chance: a narrow, dirt lane between the back of the truck stop building and a tall metal fence. It was too tight for a fast chase, but it would buy him precious seconds. He jammed the car into the lane.

The Trailblazer didn't even try to follow the curve. Instead, Silas drove straight for the corner of the building. With a terrifying CRUNCH of metal and shattering plastic, the Trailblazer sideswiped a dumpster and plowed through a flimsy chain-link fence, emerging on the other side, thirty feet ahead of Alex's position, effectively blocking the exit of the truck stop lot.

Alex skidded to a stop, his small sedan trembling as violently as his body. He was trapped. Headlights pinned him in the darkness.

The Trailblazer's engine idled, a savage, sputtering purr. All three doors opened simultaneously. Silas stood beside the driver's door, the shotgun—which Alex now saw was wrapped in black tape—held loosely in one hand. Billy and Ray approached from the passenger side, their shadows long and grotesque under the truck stop lights.

Alex fumbled with his seatbelt, his mind screaming at him to run, to scramble out the passenger door and disappear into the night. But Silas raised the shotgun, pointing it not at Alex, but directly at the sedan's windshield, shattering any illusion of flight.

"Ain't no need to be rude, Alex," Silas's voice cut through the air, low and steady. "We just drove a mighty long way to have a word with our son-in-law."

Billy stepped forward, placing a massive, work-booted foot onto the hood of Alex's car. He leaned down, his face inches from the windshield, and slowly, chillingly, drew a line of dust across the glass with his finger.

"You really thought that little plastic car was gonna outrun the family, boy?" Billy drawled, his voice a gravelly whisper. "You ain't learned nothin' up here, have ya?"

Alex knew then it wasn't just about catching him; it was about the ritual of the capture, the total, humiliating display of their dominance. He was miles from their territory, but in the light of that Trailblazer, he was right back in their kitchen. He slumped back into the seat, his last reserves of hope draining away.

Silas slowly walked to the driver's side door, reaching for the handle. "We can do this easy, or we can do this hard, son. But either way," he paused, his thumb moving smoothly across the shotgun's hammer, "you're comin' home."

The Trailblazer's Pursuit

The air in the cabin was thick with the scent of fried grease, old wood smoke, and an emotional pressure that felt heavier than the Appalachian humidity. For two years, this isolated stretch of Tennessee had been a prison for Alex, a world away from the controlled, orderly life he’d known up North. The mistake had been simple, a single, regrettable night with a local woman named Darla after a friend's wedding had spun out of control. The result, six weeks later, was a confirmed pregnancy and a terse invitation to a meeting with Darla’s father, Silas. The 'invitation' was less a request and more a non-negotiable directive, backed by the chilling presence of a worn, twin-barreled shotgun leaning against the fireplace. They call those "shotgun weddings" and they are effective.

Alex chose his life. He chose marriage.

His days were now an unbearable routine of forced proximity to a family whose rhythms and existence grated on his every nerve. Silas, the patriarch, and his two towering sons, Billy and Ray, operated on a system that seemed built entirely on instinct and noise. The house, full of boisterous arguments and questionable dietary choices, felt like a cage woven from bad manners and endless suspicion. They rarely worked a visible job, but they were never idle, always tinkering, hunting, or just watching.

The ultimate symbol of his entrapment was the family vehicle: a 2004 Chevy Trailblazer. It was dented, faded, and had long ago lost its muffler, giving its approach a signature, hellish roar. This vehicle was their bloodhound. If Alex was even ten minutes late returning from his grueling construction job miles away, Silas, Billy, and Ray would pile in. The roar would come first, then the sight of the battered SUV, illuminated by the halogen headlamps, pulling up behind him, the three men glaring with the shared, silent question: Where were you going? They weren't just suspicious of him; they were certain he was plotting escape.

Alex finally reached his breaking point. After months of meticulous planning, which involved hoarding cash from every paycheck and memorizing local back roads, he set the clock.

It was 3:00 AM on a Friday. Darla was snoring softly beside him, her hand draped heavily across his chest. He slipped out of bed, dressed in the dark, and moved with a terrifying, silent precision. He left no note, no message—nothing that could give them a head start. He knew the moment they discovered him gone, the silence of the woods would be shattered.

He was in his small, leased sedan, a quiet car, the antithesis of the family’s beast. He bypassed the main roads, taking the winding, pitch-black state routes he’d mapped for weeks, using the cover of the dense forest and the early morning darkness. He drove south, counter-intuitively, before hooking east and then shooting north, aiming for the anonymity of the major interstate that would take him through Virginia and Maryland, and finally, into the safety of the Northeast.

For twelve hours, the flight was pure, desperate adrenaline. He stopped only for gas, buying terrible coffee and checking his rearview mirror with every beat of his heart. As he crossed the border into North Carolina, he felt the first true breath of freedom—a rush of intoxicating relief that made his hands shake on the wheel. He had done it. They wouldn't know where to look. They wouldn't trace his leased car. He was out.

The sun was setting, casting long, purple shadows across the interstate as he blasted through the upper half of Virginia. He had called an old friend, who was already contacting a lawyer. Soon, he would be home. Soon, the nightmare would be over.

He eased into the fast lane, his tension beginning to melt into weary exhaustion. He was two states away. They couldn't possibly—

Then, he heard it.

It started as a low, persistent growl, a sound he hadn't heard in hours, a sound he had convinced himself he would never hear again. It was the distinct, visceral, non-muffled rumble of a failing exhaust system. It was the sound of a very specific, twenty-one-year-old SUV.

He gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles turned white. He checked his mirrors. The highway was wide open, save for a few distant sets of headlights. The growl was louder now, closer, gaining.

In the faint, gathering twilight, he saw it.

It was a dark, bruised shape moving with impossible speed in the rearview mirror—the high, blocky silhouette of a 2004 Chevy Trailblazer.

The headlights were on, glaring. And through the dusty, fractured rear window of the SUV, illuminated by his own brake lights, he could just make out three grim, determined faces: Silas behind the wheel, his jaw set hard, and Billy and Ray pressed against the passenger windows, their expressions a mixture of cold fury and triumphant vindication.

They hadn't just suspected he would run. They had known. And their trusty, ugly, utterly reliable machine had tracked him down across hundreds of miles.

The roaring, relentless Trailblazer was gaining fast, a piece of his worst nightmare chasing him into his new life. Alex pressed the accelerator to the floor, the thrill of freedom instantly replaced by the sickening realization that the chase was just beginning, and he had nowhere left to run.

The Unclaimed Acre

Hello All:

Extra Terrestrial Alien Abductions, a state of mind in which the familiar is invaded by the utterly strange and incomprehensible.

In fact, one of the most famous pieces of alien abduction lore, the Betty and Barney Hill case in 1961, popularized the concept of "lost time". The couple drove for a time in their car, but couldn't account for roughly two hours when they arrived home, a common and unsettling feature in stories of the unexplained. This theme of disorientation and unaccounted-for moments in a familiar setting is what makes these narratives so terrifying. They suggest that reality itself can be paused, edited, or warped, without our knowledge, leaving us forever questioning our own memories. Now, let’s venture into that surreal and frightening place.

The Unclaimed Acre

The air in rural Maine had a metallic tang on that late October night, sharp and cold, like a freshly licked coin. Shawn Thorne, a taciturn man whose family had worked the same patch of land near the White Mountains for five generations, was walking his acreage line with a battered kerosene lantern. His old dog, Buster, was normally indifferent to the night, but tonight the animal was a whimpering, shivering mass of fur pressed against Shawn’s oilskin trousers. This was the initial hook: the land was familiar, but the silence—a thick, unnatural vacuum where crickets and wind should have been—was deeply wrong.

It was just past the dead spruce line when Shawn felt the world tilt. Not physically, but perspectivally, as if his mind had briefly shifted focus from one reality to another. The light from his lantern suddenly felt weak, overpowered by an intense, soundless greenish-white illumination that bloomed over the neighboring ridge. It wasn't just bright; it was surgical, stripping the color from the forest and leaving everything in stark, monochrome clarity. Buster let out a single, strangled yelp—the last sound Shawn would hear from him—before the dog's leash went slack.

Shawn looked down. Buster was gone. He shouted the dog's name, a raw, desperate sound swallowed instantly by the abnormal silence. The light grew, pressing down on him, and he instinctively stumbled backward into the shadow of a massive, ancient oak. The next thing he knew, he was back in the chilling Maine air, leaning against the oak.

But he was not the same.

He checked his watch, a heavy, wind-up piece: 1:17 AM. He was supposed to have been home by 11:30 PM. Over three hours were missing. Shawn checked the ground where he had stood. The lantern was there, still burning low, but the brass housing was coated with a thin, almost iridescent film he couldn't wipe off. The most disturbing detail, however, was the patch of earth itself. It was perfectly level, perfectly bare, as if a two-acre circle of his field had been meticulously raked and sterilized, leaving no blade of grass, no stone, and no trace of Buster.

Shawn stumbled back to his farmhouse, the three lost hours a terrifying, blank canyon in his mind. He felt a dull ache behind his left ear, a phantom sensation of pressure and cold. He tried to tell his wife, Martha, but the words caught in his throat. How could he explain the wrongness of the silence, the sheer, crushing helplessness of being held outside of time? He only managed to say he lost the dog and had a dizzy spell.

For weeks, the silence followed him. The fear built not from what he remembered, but from what he couldn't. He’d wake up sweating, his hands clutching the sheets, with faint, crystalline geometric patterns flashing behind his eyelids. He avoided mirrors, but one morning, shaving, he caught the glint of something unnatural. Just behind his earlobe, a tiny, almost invisible, perfectly symmetrical metallic pinhead was embedded flush with his skin. The sight brought a rush of nausea, and a sudden, vivid memory: sterile light, cold air, and the feeling of being utterly, terrifyingly observed by silent, towering shadows.

The true terror came on Christmas Eve. Shawn was in the living room, staring out the window at the new snow. He finally understood the missing time. The aliens hadn't just taken him; they had analyzed him. He wasn't a man; he was a specimen. He wasn't afraid of the green light coming back—he was afraid that when it returned, he would willingly walk into it, a programmed puppet seeking his master. He was no longer Shawn Thorne, the man who owned the land. He was Shawn Thorne, the man whose mind was no longer his own. The eerie, unsettling truth was that the terror wasn't out there in the sky; it was a tiny, cold piece of metal inside his head. He lifted his shaky hands to his temples, pressing against the inevitable fate of the next visitation, knowing he was only waiting for the signal.

Arrested by the Cableman

Company vans never offered air conditioning for the cable TV installers and service technicians. On a sweltering-hot summer afternoon like this, the Cableman wished he had it. But, as management believed, air conditioning would only weaken a worker's ability to tolerate heat while working outdoors. The Cableman had no choice but to wear his short-sleeve shirt and drink plenty of beverages on days like this. But beverages were the last thing on the Cableman's mind as he turned onto the off-beaten path near one of the local forest preserves, a secluded spot where he’d often take an unauthorized break to clear his head after a stressful day of splicing.

The Cableman was smart. Where-as most installers called in their routes upon completion; the Cableman waited until close to 5:00, quitting time, before announcing his route complete. That way, he could enjoy some leisure time while on the job.

No one ever ventured to this off-beaten path of the forest preserve, at least to the Cableman's belief. Being the case, he felt safe from watching eyes that could call the number on his truck and report suspicious activities. The Cableman reached behind his seat for a fully-packed, 3-foot graphic-slider-bong. Transparent and dull-blue in color; one could see that it was half filled with water that would soon filter the harshness of marijuana smoke.

The Cableman put the graphic-slider-bong to his mouth and then torched the bowl piece with a lighter while deeply inhaling. Immediately a cloud of white, cannabis smoke gurgled through the water and into his lungs. He held the smoke in for as long as he could and then quickly exhaled the used cloud out the van window. Being that it was such a sweltering, hot day with no wind; the vapors could only slowly drift away. This concerned the Cableman, some. What if someone walked by and noticed the cloud?

After 30 seconds, the Cableman took another deep hit from his graphic-slider-bong and held it in for as long as possible. He slowly exhaled and watched the cloud drift away. This exercise was repeated again and again until the bowl piece had been nearly cashed. It was at this point when the Cableman took notice of how dreamy and pixilated the surrounding world appeared. That moment felt terribly like some television show, almost as-if he could see himself on a TV screen. This was the Cableman's reference indicator of being megally-stoned.

Suddenly, the dispatcher squawked over the radio, "Base to 811!" The office was looking for him! Panic flushed throughout the Cableman's veins. He quickly keyed the microphone, "Yeah go ahead, Base?" The dispatcher squawked back, "Okay, I was wondering if you had time to swing over to 722 Ruby Lane. The customer complains that her neighbor tried burying a line from their side of the house and tapped into their cable. Could you see if there's some cable theft going on?" Hearing of cable theft was enough to jolt the Cableman straight. The thrill of catching a criminal was his ultimate professional rush. He firmly keyed into the microphone and replied, "I'll get right on it!" Chugging the remains of his Arizona Iced Tea and donning his dark Cableman utility sunglasses, he vowed: nobody steals cable in the Cableman's jurisdiction—nobody!

Fifteen minutes later, the Cableman reached the customer's house at 722 Ruby Lane. Intimidating and appearing to mean business, he clicked up the driveway with his steel-toed work boots, leather tool belt dangling at the side, and company shirt with a logo. Sure enough, upon reaching the side of the house, he discovered a makeshift cable-burial that ran from the neighbor's house over to the customer's. A cheap splitter had been attached to the customer's incoming cable so that some of it could be fed over to the neighbor's. The Cableman was livid! He immediately began taking photographs with his phone camera for evidence.

Just then, he noticed a flash of red. A gorgeous blonde—the prime suspect—was backing a red, convertible Mustang out of the neighboring garage. The Cableman swore under his breath. The suspect was getting away! She was a flight risk and couldn't escape his justice! The Cableman rushed back into his van, slipped the transmission into "drive" and peeled off, following behind the Mustang. He activated the rotating, orange light on the roof of his van, followed by the hazards, using every non-standard means he possessed to signal her to pull over.

Finally, the driver, a petite woman named Rachel, noticed the cable van behind her. "Oh, no! I'm being pulled over! Why?" she thought, moving over to the right-hand shoulder. She was astonished to see a cable company van signaling her to stop. With his lights still activated, the Cableman stepped out of the van. Steel-toed boots clicking on the road, he approached the Mustang. "Good afternoon, Ma'am. It looks like you've been stealing cable. That's a serious offense," he stated, leaning in.

Rachel stared at him, defensive and disbelieving. "No! You can't pull me over! You're with the cable company, not a cop! I wasn't stealing cable!"

The Cableman ordered, "Please step out of your car!"

"I can't believe this! This is unreal!" Rachel did as ordered while assaulting the Cableman with an angry and confused glare. Did he really have the authority to do this?

The Cableman reached into his leather tool belt, pulled out two large zip-ties, and joined them together. "At this time, you're being detained for questioning regarding a felony-level service theft. You will be brought down to the office for interrogation," he stated with stern, misguided authority. He quickly secured her hands behind her back with the makeshift cuffs and aggressively escorted her to the back of his van. 

"What are you doing? You can't do this! Is this some kind of joke?" Rachel cried, trying to resist his grip.

Once inside the stifling hot van, the Cableman secured her to the grated aluminum wall that separated the front from the back. The heat in the sealed van was immediately oppressive. Shelves occupied the sidewalls and held secured boxes of fittings, cables, splitters, filters along with converter boxes and small infrastructure used to feed customers’ homes. Separating the front of the van from the back was a grated, aluminum wall that not only provided a view of the tool and equipment area from the driver seat, but also provided a means to hang various equipment if needed.

"Don't worry about your car. We'll get a tow truck to impound it," he said, the adrenaline still coursing through him. He briefly left to roll up both windows, making the van completely sealed and soundproof to prevent her calls for help from alarming the surrounding citizens. Returning, he fixed her with a hard look. "I know about the illegal line running to your neighbor's house. Who else is involved in this scheme?" he demanded.

"I don't know what you're talking about! Let me out!" Rachel yelled, sweating profusely in the heat.

"I can do this the hard way or the easy way," he threatened. Stepping out to the front seat, he grabbed a large, orange popsicle he’d picked up earlier at a convenient store. He returned to the back, wielding the cold treat. "Let's see if this heat and a little time to cool down change your mind," he said, intentionally scraping the cold, icy pop against her cheek. Rachel flinched, her eyes wide with fear and confusion at his strange, unprofessional methods. The Cableman could see the psychological toll of the heat and her detention was beginning to break her resolve. But he could see she wasn't quite ready to talk just yet. Maybe there was another tactic.

The Cableman stepped out the back of the truck and returned to the driver side where he rolled both windows down. The rotating and flashing hazards lights were deactivated, transmission slipped back into drive and the Cableman pulled off, en route to his office.

"We'll see what they do to you once we rach the office" The he offered her a truce. "I'm going through the drive-through at Culver’s. Do you want a Concrete Mixer? If you tell me the truth, we can resolve this before we get back to the office."

Rachel, desperate and overheated, simply nodded for the cold treat. "Vanilla," she managed.

***

A few minutes later, the Cableman returned to the back of the van with the frozen custard. He spoon-fed her the Mixer, letting the icy cold briefly alleviate the distress. In between bites, he pressed her. "So, why don't you tell me a little bit about stealing cable? Who ran that line?"

Finally, she broke, panting in the heat. "It was my boyfriend! He ran the line over to my neighbor's house so we could have free cable. There, I confessed! Now please just let me out of this heat!"

The Cableman stepped back, his chest heaving with triumph. The truth was out. He removed the restraints. "Well, seeing that you've confessed and identified the primary suspect, you're free to go. You can sit in the front seat and ride with me back to your car. Thank you for being so cooperative this afternoon.” 

Twenty minutes later, the Cableman dropped Rachel off by her little, red, convertible Mustang and peeled off back to the office. It was 5:00—quitting time! Justice had been served, even if the "arrest" was wildly outside the job description.

The Great Commute Conspiracy

 Hello All:

I was in a traffic jam a few weeks ago and imagined this scenario after seeing some guy walking on the side of the road. It evolved into something fantastic, highly visual, and absurd scenario. It’s a perfect idea for a short, darkly humorous tale that highlights the strange, shared realities of modern urban life. We'll categorize this as a piece of Bizarro that dips into contemporary absurdity.

The Great Commute Conspiracy

Rex was having a stellar day. The sky was the color of dirty cement, his rent was late, and he was walking the four miles to his buddy’s apartment because he’d sold his bike for bus fare he hadn't spent. But walking gave him one profound, simple joy: the ability to stride past the misery of others. And right now, on the 405 South, misery was a stagnant, four-lane ocean of expensive steel.

The traffic jam was monumental, a disaster of broken axles and shattered hopes. The collective frustration was a palpable stench, heavier than the exhaust fumes. Rex, a man whose only consistent style was defiance, sauntered down the shoulder, swinging a faded canvas backpack.

He stopped beside a gleaming black SUV where a woman in a headset was beating a frustrated rhythm on her steering wheel.

“Hey, Queen of the Road!” Rex shouted, giving a mock salute. “Enjoyin’ the view from your iron coffin? Got all the square footage of a luxury prison cell, but none of the privacy! Hope you packed a snack, ‘cause you’ll die right there!”

The woman only glared, but the man in the Lexus behind her, dressed in a sharp suit and a tighter expression, leaned out of his partially opened window.

“Why don’t you just keep walking, pal?” the man snapped, his voice tense with road rage.

Rex threw his hands up in mock surrender. “Oh, I will! But at least I’m going somewhere. You’re just a spectator at your own burial, chief! Go on, give your horn a little toot! See if that moves the mountain!”

He moved on, chuckling to himself. He loved watching the frantic, trapped energy of the people who’d bought into the system. They were caged, and he was gloriously free.

He was about to deliver a particularly poetic insult to a minivan full of sullen children when the energy shifted.

It happened around the fifth car back in the line. A thick, sweet, herbal cloud, like a slow-moving fog bank, was lazily drifting out of the tinted windows of a battered Honda Civic.

Then came the sound. Not the low thrum of engines or the angry snarl of horns, but the pulsing, joyous beat of 90s West Coast hip-hop, loud enough to rattle Rex’s teeth.

The driver of the Honda, a young woman with kaleidoscope sunglasses, spotted Rex. She wasn't frustrated; she was grinning maniacally. Her entire car was filled with people laughing, leaning over the seats, passing something around.

Rex stopped his mocking routine, his jaw slack. He looked ahead. The traffic wasn't moving. It hadn't moved for half an hour. But these people weren't miserable. They were celebrating.

He peered into the car. The center console was lined with snacks—Funyuns, Cheetos, and a glistening half-eaten tub of cookie dough. A faint, low sound was coming from the back seat, which Rex realized was the gurgle of a small, battery-powered water fountain—a makeshift filtration system for something much stronger.

"What are you doing?" Rex asked, not shouting this time, but genuinely confused.

The woman in the sunglasses leaned her head out the window, the sweet smoke following her like a pet. "What are you doing, man? This is the longest party in the state! We're celebrating the Great Commute Conspiracy! Turns out, if the traffic isn't moving, you can't get arrested, and you can't be late!"

A man from the car behind her—a pristine BMW—yelled out, "Hey, Cindy, invite the hobo! He looks like he needs to be unburdened!"

Cindy threw her hands out. "Get in here, friend! We got an eternal flame burning on the back seat and we're only on car four! Join the line of leisure!"

Rex, whose daily high was usually just the mild euphoria of pissing off someone wealthy, felt a profound philosophical shift. This wasn't a jam; it was a rebellion. He slipped his backpack off his shoulders and, for the first time in his life, willingly entered a car he didn't own.

He squeezed into the back seat of the Honda, accepting a plastic-filtered contraption from a man who was using a dashboard map light to carefully toast a bowl. The music was vibrating through the floorboards.

"Welcome to the line," Cindy chirped. "Don't worry, the SUV lady two cars up is our designated driver. She's keeping a sober eye on the brake lights. If they move, we all know."

Rex took a cautious hit. Then another. Then the third, deep, lung-searing pull, inhaling the collective, pressurized joy of the traffic jam.

The next hour ceased to be a linear experience. It became a sensory hurricane.

The bass from the stereo began to feel like a warm, benevolent fist gently massaging his internal organs. He looked out the window and the stationary cars didn't look angry anymore; they looked like brightly colored space capsules, each one a little world full of its own beautiful secrets.

He thought he had an epiphany regarding the true meaning of the yellow lane dividers—that they were actuall strips of divine guidance—and spent ten minutes explaining this in detail to a bewildered accountant in the BMW who had wandered over to the Civic with a bag of gourmet beef jerky.

When he took his final, massive, party-ending hit—a communal effort passed over from the minivan, which was now filled with college students and the aroma of pineapple smoke—it was too much.

His perception of his own body fractured. He wasn't sure if he was sitting or floating. He felt like his teeth were made of small, singing bells, and the realization that his belt was too tight sent him into a silent, internal crisis of existential discomfort.

"Okay, okay, I gotta go," Rex managed to slur, trying to find the door handle.

Cindy just smiled, her kaleidoscope glasses refracting the interior light. "Don't worry, man. The line hasn't moved. The party's still here."

"No," Rex whispered, feeling his consciousness detach from his skeleton. "I have to move. I have to..."

He tumbled out of the car and onto the hot asphalt shoulder. The sudden silence was deafening. The sunlight was a physical assault. Rex looked back at the rows of cars—now twelve deep, with people walking between them, sharing snacks, and exchanging deep philosophical arguments.

He staggered to his feet, feeling as if he were seven feet tall and five ounces heavy. He wobbled past the party, unable to deliver a single witty insult. His mocking energy was gone, replaced by a sense of profound, giggling wonder.

As he finally made it past the last car and stumbled onto the off-ramp grass, he heard the faint, distant sound of the party still pulsing behind him. He was higher than he had ever been—a true ascent, not a simple walk.

Rex looked back at the traffic jam, a monument to defiance and shared joy. He no longer saw a trap. He saw a fleet of immobile, celebratory ships.

He pulled his backpack onto his shoulders and began walking, staggering slightly, the sweet, heavy scent of marijuana and rebellion clinging to his clothes. He no longer felt free; he felt like a broadcast antenna, humming with the sublime, absurd realization that sometimes, the only way to beat the system is to stop moving and start a massive, illegal party in the middle of it.

He finally made it to his friend's apartment, knocked, and then immediately forgot why he was standing there, mistaking the doormat for a small, sleeping badger. The Great Commute Conspiracy was over for him, but the glorious, soaring high had just begun.

The Endurance of the Everyday: Standing Firm in the Face of the End

First Reading: Malachi 4: 1-2a

Second Reading: Second Thessalonians 3: 7-12

Gospel: Luke 21: 5-19

Hello All:

As we move through these final weeks of the liturgical year, the Church directs our attention to the great and final theme of our faith: eschatology, the study of the end times. The readings today—from Malachi, Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians, and the challenging words of Jesus in Luke’s Gospel—paint a powerful and often intimidating picture of what the world will face.

They invite us not to speculate about dates or signs, but to assess how we are living right now, in this very moment, as we await the return of the Lord.

The Endurance of the Everyday: Standing Firm in the Face of the End

The prophecies from Malachi and the graphic warnings from Jesus in the Gospel of Luke speak of a stark reality: the Day of the Lord is coming, and it will be a moment of absolute truth.

Malachi describes this day as "blazing like an oven," consuming the arrogant and the wicked. It is a terrifying image of divine justice. Yet, the same prophecy promises comfort for those who reverence the Lord’s name: for them, the "sun of justice will rise, with healing in its rays."

Similarly, in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus speaks of terrible events: the destruction of grand temples, wars, insurrections, and persecution. He is not trying to cause panic, but to deliver a clear warning: do not be terrified, and do not be deceived by false prophets who promise easy answers.

Jesus is telling us that our faith will not exempt us from the world’s chaos, but will equip us to face it. The question is: How do we live and prepare for this ultimate division between the burning and the healing light?

The most immediate and practical answer to this question comes not from apocalyptic speculation, but from the simple, grounded instruction of Saint Paul in the Second Reading.

The early Christian community in Thessalonica had become so convinced the Lord’s return was imminent that some members simply stopped working. They decided to idle their lives away, becoming a burden on the community. Paul’s response is sharp and direct:

"We instructed you that if anyone was unwilling to work, neither should that one eat."

This is not just an economic lesson; it is a profound spiritual lesson.

The warning against idleness is a warning against a spiritual laziness that replaces humble obedience with religious enthusiasm. We are called to follow Paul’s example: "to work quietly and to earn your own bread." Our faithfulness is not demonstrated by dramatic pronouncements or by waiting idly on the sidelines. It is demonstrated in the quiet, humble endurance of the everyday.

To work, to care for our families, to contribute to our community, to do our duties with diligence—this is the true way to prepare for the Lord's coming. When we live responsibly and humbly, we are fulfilling the Christian call to stewardship and love, rather than becoming a drain on the Body of Christ.

In his final instruction in the Gospel, Jesus gives us the key to navigating the tribulation of the world, whether that tribulation is a global conflict or the silent, personal struggle we endure every day:

"By your perseverance you will secure your lives."

Jesus does not promise to take away the hardship, but He promises that our endurance will save us.

Perseverance means showing up every day, even when the world feels like it's falling apart.

Perseverance means doing your job quietly, even when you'd rather preach or prophesy.

Perseverance means resisting the temptation to be terrified or to follow easy, deceptive paths.

This is the faith that Malachi spoke of. When we live a life of humble, quiet perseverance—when we love, serve, and work diligently—we are showing that we truly fear the Lord and reverence His name. When the "sun of justice" rises, we will not be consumed; we will be met by the gentle light of healing.

Let us, then, take heart from the Psalm, which calls on us to "sing to the LORD a new song" because His justice is coming. This coming is a cause for celebration and joy, but that joy is earned through the spiritual discipline of standing firm right where God has planted us.

Do not be idle. Do not be afraid. Be faithful in the small things, and by your steady endurance, you will find eternal life. Amen.