BLOOD IN THE WIRE

I want to get this down here instead of explaining it again in six different replies later, because people always ask the same thing when the words missing time show up and I am tired of doing the polite version of the answer, there is no music sting, no soft fade to black, none of the show stuff, its a clock that says one number and a body that remembers a different one, and I have kept dates on this kind of thing since before this page even existed (the truck pages are still up, check the dates on those against this one, they line up closer than anyone wants to admit), so what happened this week is not new for me, it is just the first time I sat down and wrote the actual number instead of rounding it off in my head like I usually do. Wednesday, no, I keep saying Wednesday because the truck comes Wednesdays now, but the day itself is the part I cant actually swear to. I left the house at 6:10, I always leave at 6:10, alarm and everything, and the drive to the depot is eleven minutes, I have timed it more then a dozen times on more than one clock, and I got out of the car and the dash said 7:32.

Seventy eight minutes gone out of an eleven minute drive. Not almost an hour, an hour and eighteen, and I checked the dash twice because the first read felt like somebody's idea of a joke, second time it STILL said 7:32. Thats the number. Write it down if you dont believe me, I already did, twice, dash and phone both. My dad used to leave notes on the fridge in grease pencil, the kind that comes off if you press a thumbnail into it, so nothing he ever wrote lasted the week. Anyway.

They knew, I think, because the truck was sitting in the visitor row when I finally pulled in, a row that truck never uses, recyling logo half peeled off the door same as always, and the guy inside didnt get out, just sat there with the window up like sitting there was the job. Thats twice this month in that row. Twice. Coincidence, probably, except two times in one month in a row a vehicle has no business being in stops being a coincidence and starts being a route. Check your own dash next time an hour goes missing off a morning that shouldnt have room for it, see how close your number lands to mine, then tell me its nothing.

I dont sleep right the night after one of these and I know thats probably connected, the gone time and the not sleeping, knowing that doesnt make either one explain itself though, and sorry for the wall of text, I just needed the number written down somewhere that isnt only in my head for once. No photo this time. Didnt think to, which is its own kind of wrong given what I usually remember to do. Still havent found the eleven minutes the drive should have taken. Still looking at the dash.