I Transcended In A Gas Station In Fort Payne Alabama

the gas station smells like chewing tobacco, but it also smells like home, in a way that any child of the south knows. there are pickled eggs on the counter, homemade and beckoning like witches brew. behind the counter, the cashier twirls her hair like spinning wool for thread. a man is buying beer in front of me, ranting about the government— someone is always ranting about the government. it's familiar, a comforting presence in a world too large. someone dropped a jar of pickled eggs, once, and the smell lingers— vinegar mixes with the smell of peach tobacco. outside, the leaves are changing slowly. the sock factory next door has been closed for months now, abandoned. i feel it too, sometimes, abandoned— an empty shell, a ghost of things which once were mine. time slows here, stops. here, a sign hangs above the door: Reverend Tom's Hunting Dogs Call This Number to Buy. you've never needed a hunting dog, but time is different here, and you take one of printed slips at the bottom of the page, save it for later. we lose pieces of ourselves, daily, shedding like the leaves falling outside. gasoline spills on my hands and the smell never disappears completely. nothing ever disappears completely, no man or dream fading into sleep in the cold winter which is coming, the grey clouds churning above the red roof, damaged by the hail we had in 2008— a lifetime ago, it seems, when we were younger and the beer on the shelves felt more like a promise than a punishment. back when our hands met over the dash in this same parking lot, a peace treaty someone is smoking by the door, too close to the pumps for comfort. i will smell like tobacco for days— the secondhand smoke clings to my hair and it feels like coming home. falling leaves have always felt like bones under my feet: i die every winter and find myself here, reborn, in the ashes of a cigarette disposal somewhere off I-85.