When I was teenager an old man with tired eyes grabbed my arm. “Don’t look back,” he said. And I just tried to ignore him, but he glared and tightened his grip. “Don’t look back, boy.”
I shook my head, pulled out of his grip, and walked away as fast as I could.
“When you’re old like me, don’t look back,” he yelled behind my back.
At the time, I didn’t understand what he meant, and I never forgot this encounter, but I figured it out. He literarily had asked me to don’t look back. I just didn’t know when.
Now, I’m inside this dark hole where I can’t even see my fingers. Silence is broken by rats chewing on whatever is on the floor. Who knows what else is there. To think I could’ve avoided this if I’d listened to the old man. Don’t look back. He should’ve yell, “Don’t ever, ever look back.”
He read my future.
My "don’t look back" future.
But I did. I did look back. And took my eyes off the road.
I ran over a dog.
In dog country—stupid dogs. I like dogs but here they’re gods. I—I didn’t know.
The dog died and I was sentenced to spend my life inside this lightless pigsty.
“Don’t look back,” the old man told me.
I won’t. Even if I try, I can’t look back—I cannot see and it’s so freaking cold.
