The Shape of Burning You are telling the story again.

"With him," you are saying, "it feels so comfortable. Not like sex or lust but just comfortable. Like your favorite pillow, ya' know."

But again there is no one listening. You are driving alone and saying the same things. You do this quite often. You rehearse lines from your life. You expect people to ask, maybe. Or just that it will come up and then you will be prepared. Although you also know it will never come up and no one will ask.

"I mean I had a dream about it," you look over into the empty seat, at what you judge to be eye level. "Yeah, I did. And it was the best dream I ever had."

And because of that it was the worst. You are involved with a serious boyfriend. He is not serious as far as personality goes, just serious about you. He lets you drive his cars around - he has quite a few, and they are constantly changing - he buys you presents for no real reason and he is never mean to you. You and him have been together for a long time. There is no reason for you to be unhappy. But the dream was about someone else: a guy you work with.

You are driving to work right now. You will see him and act the same as you always do, as if he is no different from anyone else.

You drive around the lot trying to find a spot for ten minutes. The rain clears just as you pull up the emergency brake. You think about what people say, about the mall being empty when it rains. You do not believe it, not today, and you are frustrated. The sky is a mix of white and grey and baby boy blue.

When you see him, you feel a quickening in your chest. This has happened to you ever since he handed you the application. You received a lot of applications that day and filled out two. The other one, which offered a quarter more an hour, is directly across from your current job.

It is not a good job. In fact, it is your first job. So you actually do not know anything about it. But you hate the work.

You quickly raise and drop your hand towards him, which is your way of saying, Hello I had this dream about you, but I have a boyfriend. You calm yourself. It is not difficult for you to hide what the inside of your chest is doing. You have done it all your adult life. In fact, the two are almost one response. Your chest quickening and you calming yourself.

Normally he checks your bag and, once you have put it in your locker, you work the floor. Today is different.

He walks right over to you and begins talking. He tells you Gary is sick and that he has to run the store today. You ask if Gary is ok. He nods and looks over your head, sweeping the store, biting his lower lip. You look at his lips.

"We are understaffed, so you will need to run register and set spring," he says.

You take your eyes off of his lips, look at his eyes, and nod quickly. You tell him yes, sure, no problem, that's fine, yeah-yeah.

He says good, breathes out and touches your shoulder.

"Thank you," he says, his hand still on your shoulder. "So much, really. This day is just, I don't know." He rubs your shoulder just before he lets go. He tells you to relieve Vicky. You are touching your shoulder as you head towards the registers. This is the first time he has touched you.

Your day goes by quickly. There are not a ton of customers, so running back and forth is not so bad. You do not mind the work today. You wish every day at work could go by this quick. Once a customer asks if you hurt your shoulder. This makes you blush, and stop touching your shoulder.

As you are leaving, he asks if you need a ride. You consider it for a second, though you have no reason to, and say no, thanks. I'm fine, you tell him. He says it's no problem. You say ok and immediately wonder why you said it. Then you smile to yourself and turn around to wait.

He is talking about sales as you walk out of the mall.

"We didn't make budget today, but we were understaffed, so it should even out," he says.

You look up at him and say yeah. His eyes look confused.

"My car should be right here. That's where he said he left it," he says. He takes out his cellphone and talks to someone named Silly. You wonder if it's a nickname.

The mall parking lot looks oddly beautiful to you at night. The emptiness of it. The way the pole lights light up select cars, the ones that are parked at the pole's base. It's as if that car has been selected, like it's won something. No matter how ugly a car is, put it next to a pole light and the night will bring out it's beauty.

"Ok-Ok, whatever. It's not here. Yeah. Yeah, Silly, I'll call you back," he sounds aggravated. You are thinking about a car's soul when he puts the phone in his pocket and looks at you. He says he doesn't know where his car is, that he is going to have to walk around and look for it. He tells you he is sorry and that you should take the bus or call a ride because, "I don't know where this motherfucker parked my car."

"How are you going to get home?" you ask. He says he doesn't know. "How did you get here?" You now realize that his car may have been stolen and that this is a big deal.

He rolls his eyes and his head and breaths loudly. "I don't know, it's a long story," he says. He looks at you, you wait. "Silly dropped me off this morning, he needed the car, he did what he had to do, parked it there," pointing, "got a ride, that's what he says," he said it so fast it took a second to understand.

You tell him you could drive him home if he needs a ride home. This, of course, takes some explaining, which you are not prepared to give.

"I just didn't feel like driving home tonight, so when you asked and, see there was this dream," you stop, move your hand quickly in front of your face. "Look, I just wanted a ride, but I can give you a ride. Do you want a ride?" you ask, making your face into a squint.

He looks at you for a second, laughs, and says sure. Your car is parked on the other end. He calls Silly, tells him, "I don't know what you did with my car. Yeah, yeah. Look, I'll be home soon. Well, its not where you said it was and I'm tired. I got a ride, I gotta go" he says, and hangs up.

The front of you car is an inch away from the pole, but the light is out. He says its weird and you ask what is. "Well, I have the same car," he says. That is weird, you say.

"What's wrong? What are you doing?" you ask. You are digging in your bag for the keys and he is standing still, looking at the back of your car.

"What is going on?" he asks. He looks at you, you haven't seen these eyes before. "What are you doing?"

You find the keys and open the door. "What? What's wrong, I don't understand," you say.

"This is my car. You have keys to my car," he says. His eyes look like fire. He pulls out his set of keys from his pocket. "These are my keys, what are you doing?" He looks angry and scared.

You say you don't understand, and he walks towards the driver side. You back away and stand by the pole light. He stands next to the open door, looking at you. He bends over and looks around the inside of the car. He gets in and checks the glove box, you hear paper rustling. He comes out of the car with a piece of paper in his hand.

"This has my name on it. It says that I pay insurance on this car. Not you, not fucking Silly, or whatever the shit is happening. This is my car, what the fuck are you doing," he moves towards you.

You are scared. More scared than you have ever been. You back into the emptiness of the lot. You tell him that your boyfriend has a lot of cars and that you were given this one to drive this afternoon. That you had never seen it before but that you were always driving different cars.

"So your fucking boyfriend just steals cars, has a different car for you to drive every fucking day and you don't question it?" He is standing by the pole. He punches the pole with the hand that holds the paper. "Did you ever open up the fucking glove box and see who owns the car? Did you ever do that you fucking bitch? Huh?"

He punches the pole again. The light flickers for a second and then sparks. You see that his hand is bleeding by the redness of the paper. He looks like dark fire, the shape of burning. You are crying and holding your bag to your chest. You are saying please and oh god over and over again. You back up more.

"Where are you going? No, come here, " he demands, and starts to walk towards you. You back up too quickly and fall on your hands. You lose your bag. You back up some on the ground, and then quickly get up and start to run. He is running after you.

You turn your head to see how close he is. Your chest is thumping. He has turned around and is running to his car. You run towards the mall. You get to the glass doors and slam your palms and arms on the glass. You cup your hand over your eyes and peer in. You do not see anyone. He has parked his car just behind you, the trunk is open. You stand with your back against the glass. You do not know where to run, who to go to, what to do. You want to stab yourself in the stomach.

He gets out and goes to the trunk. He turns the corner of the car with a wooden bat in his hand. "You are coming with me. You will get in this car and we will drive right over to your fucking faggots house right now," he says.

You yell for help and start to run. He is too close. He grabs you by the hair. You reach around for his hand. He has the bat to your neck. You think about him touching your shoulder earlier today. He is backing you towards his car. You cannot breathe.

You tell him that you cannot breathe, but he does not hear you. You cannot understand how this is happening. It feels like a story, or a movie, and you are outside of it. You tell him you cannot breathe. You feel him sit down on something as you come to a stop. He tightens the bat on your neck and screams. You see him screaming, with a bat to your neck. It's an aerial shot. He is sitting on the hood of his car with you held tightly to his chest.

Cut to his face. The screaming stops and you see him let go of the bat. The sound of it hitting the pavement echoes. You are limp against his body. He looks around the lot and then at you. He lifts you up and takes you to the trunk. There is a shot from inside the trunk as it closes. Then there is darkness.

But you do not want it to end there. You want a shot of him driving through the empty lot with every pole light flickering, turning on just as he drives away. You want the road he drives on to be dark save for his passing. You now, in your present state, want the lights to light his way and find his beauty. As he drives down this road, searching for your resting place.  ¶ 10:59 AM