Toynbee Idea

McGoo squints at the clock above the bar. The numbers are smeared across the face. Like bugs on a windshield.  His soul squirms inside his flesh; if only he could slough it off. He slides off the stool, stumbles out into the alley and starts walking. The buses had stopped running for the night. Or forever. He wasn’t clear.

He trudges onward, past the town limits, weary, but just wishing that flittery moth in is chest could scrabble out of his throat and fly away. Instead, he just keeps lumbering as streets become roads, become lanes.

It’s near daybreak when McGoo is stung. He falls into a pasture rolling and swatting the great black flies circling his face and gouging him. No, not bugs but a twist of barbed wire. Not just any wire he realizes in the faint light. Fentress split diamond barbs. Unmistakable. He grew up near here.