A-Void by Babak Govan (phonics readers txt) 📕

everything can be yours!”) commercial plays, followed by the disclaimer that the artist is released from liability for any thought, feeling, or behavior that the listener may experience at any time after listening to the song. Within seconds, I select another song and the cycle repeats. Before long, I turn it all off and everything is quiet enough to hear everything.

Cleveland rises to view the PC Compliance Auditor patrol vehicle, with its doors outspread in the middle of the crusty off-ramp for Coolwater Lane.

At the undersized Marriott-Hilton-Hyatt, we share canned corn and beans I salvaged from a deserted trailer. Then, I run through the halls knocking on all the doors.

The icy shower helps numb the burn on my back and I am able to lie on it. The sheets feel minty against my heels.

Past the fire smoke swimming across the sky, I find the star I found when I lived for two days in the stranger’s house. Even though it seems farther away than ever before, I am tempted to wave to it, asking, “Do you see me?”

Coiling into the sheets, I face the room and think of the state line. I must be hopeful, because tomorrow will be a difficult day.

None of the gas stations work. Unable to siphon enough gas from another car to keep us going, I stuff Isabella’s unicorn, Steamboat Willie, and M_____’s box into my backpack and we abandon the Honda-Toyota-Chrysler.

Cleveland pants and I kneel beside him to pour water into my hands for him to drink. As he attempts it, I remember our slow-motion summer days spent poolside. For a moment, I smell suntan lotion and watermelon. I see Isabella on our diving board, hair plastered to her face, dancing like a ballerina, waving her bangles. In the afternoon, Jasmine and I rest in the hammock, admiring the pink blossoms of our cherry trees. I watch her as she monitors Isabella in the pool, her choppy sideways bangs catching on her eyelashes.

Cleveland jumps into the passenger seat of a Mercedes Benz-Audi-BMW with a full tank. I hesitate. Whose car was this? Cleveland barks, and I throw my backpack in the backseat, wash the windshield of dried bug guts, and lock my Organelle v463.2 into the instrument panel.

“No signal. We are not connected.”

We continue on Interstate-40 to the state line. There must be someone there.

A tall barbed-wired fence borders the state line. One of the surrounding hills resembles a sleeping elephant resting its snout on the ground.

I decipher a Union flag flying at half-mast in the distance but see no movement on the ground. Constructing a visor with my hand, I squint for a better view.

“What do you think, boy? Is there anyone there?” I breathe deeply.

I take a drink of water and pace along the sandy highway. I kick some stones and then stop and view the state line again, then ball my hands into fists and return to the car.

Whipping and spiraling sand overtakes the roasting mirage. Approaching the border, I can see inside the station. I ease up on the pedal and look to Cleveland. “I don’t see anything!” My throat swells as I gasp for air. “Come on—come on. Where is everyone? Fuck!”

Cleveland barks and wiggles backward in his seat when I stop the car, past a row of Jeeps. Scrambling, I open the door. “Hello? Anyone here? Anyone?” Only a gust of wind slices through. “Someone, anyone, help me!”

I wipe my sweaty hair away from my forehead, take off my sweaty shirt, and run to inspect the station.

Have aliens abducted everyone through a massive UFO? Why now? Was it a rescue? Have they been watching us? Did they know we were dying?

A dusty scent escapes behind me, as the steel door slams shut, leaving me in the station office only with papers blowing in the tailwind.

Have I passed through a wormhole into another dimension or universe? Am I in purgatory, or in a dream? Is this the apocalypse? Do I have delirium, amnesia?

With no one inside, I go back outside and lean against the shady side of the car, sliding down to the ground. I rest my head back, asking the sky for help. It feels like the Earth just stopped spinning.

I wake up from the heat. My lips are chapped and Cleveland is panting, but he attempts to lick me. I hear Isabella yelling “Yuck!” and I cannot get the echo out of my mind.

I pour water over my head and look on through the gates. We must get to The Colony, but will they let me in? Will we make it through?

ENTERING KINGMAN, AZ

1:03 PM

We descend on a deserted Kingman at the intersection of Interstate-40 and U.S.-93, and I spread maps on the hood. I was fortunate to find archived road maps in an abandoned library. We are approximately 1,200 miles outside of The Colony.

There is something beautiful and pleasant about the silence. I can hear the pebbles crunch under my shoes and the wind wrap around my ears. The desert, colored a rotted orange, surprises with a forgotten memory of my toy wagon and Pinto horses. I am sitting on the matted carpet of my bedroom, pulling the miniature pots and pans off the sides of the wagon, prepping a meal on the fire for my travelers. After all these years, why now does my mind rewind to such things?

I see three crows circling above and decide that checking just one house will inform me if anyone is alive in this town. Still there are no planes.

I pull into a driveway, next to a black- and-gold-striped Trans Am. Beside the entryway, past overgrown muted-green shrubs and patina boulders, I shatter a window and brush the glass chips off the windowsill with the bat. This time, I pull off my shirt to clump it atop the windowsill and then test the padding by brushing my fingers over it.

The house is narrow and I see through to the backyard where a red swing set