“God, that thing is such an eye sore,” Gene scoffs as he passes the new billboard on I-20. “The thing does everything but flash it’s tits at you, and frankly I prefer the latter.”

2 exits before his apartment, Gene remembers the flashing gas can on his dashboard. Somehow, though, he manages to fill his car with liquor instead of gas and forgets the light ever existed in the first place. He also decides to take the scenic route home, in hopes of avoiding yet another billboard practically begging him to be anyone else but himself. Especially if he can manage to get injured in a car wreck, too.

Rolling hills, barbed wire fences, barking dogs, clouds of mosquitos. This is where he would like to die. This is where his car will break down, this is where he will say his goodbyes, and this is where he will wake up in the morning and decide to do it all again. No plans except for the bottles in his back seat, and my god, no billboard was going to tell him otherwise.

Passing in the opposite direction, Stuart skids around what is arguably the stupidest and sharpest bend in southeast Missouri. He puts far too much trust in the traction of his 10 year-old tires and crashes off the road into an Autumn-leaf cushioned ditch. Not quite cushioned enough to break the fall of both Stuart and the bottles in his backpack, but he’s glad it was the bottles that broke and not his spine. The pool of liquor starting to form beneath him quickly reminds Stuart that Jenifer was not going to wait much longer, and the sun was going to set soon. He jumps on his bike and hopes that the new billboard will be lit tonight, when he is finally able to tell her. He only cares to see her eyes - God forbid the darkness steal those, too.