text: I pass a book on the side of the road every day when I drive home from work. It’s a hard-cover book, pretty thick, and from what I can tell it’s face down on its cover. The dirt and gravel are constantly keeping me from seeing exactly which side it’s on. For months I would see it. Some days the pages would be swollen with moisture from a recent rain, some days they’d have dried back down and it would look to still be in good enough condition, besides the slight warping of the pages from the water. Every time I saw it, I’d tell myself that one day I would stop and take a look, maybe even pick it up and take it home. Maybe just throw it away if it was in too rough a shape. Everyday I’d fantasize about what the book could be about. Fiction? An autobiography? A signed copy of the Bible? Whatever it was, the itch was in the back of my head every time I’d see it, but fade as soon as I was another block or so away. I never even told my wife about the book. She’d laugh and tell me to go get it. She’d probably drag me out of the house at any hour and go with me to get it. She was compulsive like that. She saw a certain beauty in the randomness of the universe. Running into an old friend right after she had been thinking about them? It was obviously the universe putting them together. Finding a coupon in her purse that she swears she has no memory of when she just so happens to be right next to the store she could use it at? Destiny. Then my wife died. A stroke while driving. She was at a red light when she went. It was quick, she felt nothing. But her foot came off the brake and she rolled through the intersection and got hit, spinning her car around several times before rolling off the road, being stopped only by a light post. The shattered glass and being knocked around made it look like maybe she had just randomly decided to slowly run a red. They didn’t find the cause for a while after she was dead. In that time before finding the truth, I was devastated. Was this a suicide? Did she really try to creep through a barrage of cars? Had she seen something that she thought was the universe beckoning to her? The autopsy results provided little relief, but something was better than nothing. It was almost a month before I went back to work. I had been blessed with a dream job, and a boss who defied all odds by being efficient, friendly, commanding, and, most importantly, empathetic. I used all of my vacation and sick time, but he gave me another week, paid no less, just because he could tell, deep down, that I wasn’t ready to come back just yet. He was right. My wife was my world. My everything. We had met in passing when we were both in our late twenties, and went several more years without seeing each other. But then, by ‘the Universe’ as she would always say, she became friends with a friend of mine who mentioned her ‘nerdy but kind of lovable’ single friend. We all ended up at the same birthday party for yet another friend and instantly remembered each other. We began dating immediately and were married less than two years later. We only got five years together. So, in my book, whatever the Universe was pulling, it was fucking bullshit. My wife didn’t smoke, didn’t drink, barely partied as a young adult. She volunteered at an animal shelter in her spare time and we talked often about adopting a child once we were both in a slightly more financially secure place. That and that she wanted as much of me to herself as she could get before getting a kid was the only thing keeping us from starting the adoption process. Now that she’s gone, I’m glad we never did it. My first day back at work was like swimming in a dream. So many stern faces and sympathetic looks. So many cards littering my office desk. Flowers, little succulent plants, fruit baskets. The kitchen was loaded with a varied buffet for my return. It was nice to be the center of attention for a moment, but the reason behind it was just a reminder of what I had lost. I think I only said the words ‘thank you’, during the entire day, but over a thousand times. I didn’t get a single thing done that day. I left a little early, to the surprise of no one. I drove the speed limit, maybe slightly over, but in no rush to get back to my empty home where I was surrounded by the memories we shared together. To the neglected pile of laundry that I would, unashamedly, poke through and press to my face, longing for her scent again. To the dishes that she had washed after our last meal we cooked together. Still on the drying mats next to the sink, amazing that they were still stacked, considering her haphazard way of laying the varied sizes over each other, yet allowing them to drain and dry easier. I would probably sell the house soon, but I needed more time with the memories before starting the selling process. Then I saw it. Or the lack of it. The book was gone. It was the spot, I was sure of it. I had passed it countless times. I perked up enough to get over to the left lane and flip a u-turn and then another one, slightly further than I probably needed to, but I wanted to make sure I wasn’t confused. But, no. It was definitely the spot. I slowed almost to a crawl as I drove past, craning my head to look out the passenger window to verify that it hadn’t been just covered or maybe finally demolished enough to look like it was gone. It was gone. The car honking as it flew by snapped me out of my stupor and I drove the rest of the way home fantasizing about what could have happened. Did someone do it? Did they finally see what I had seen so many times and stopped to satisfy their curiosity? I imagined that dozens of people, maybe hundreds, more even, had to have seen that book there on the side. A simple book, suffering in silence, the product of someone's hard work and dedication. Finally seeing print, maybe being a best seller, maybe being something self published online and only printed as a physical copy for themselves or a few close friends. Maybe it really was that signed copy of the Bible and Jesus was mad that no one ever picked it up, so he came down and got it himself. Maybe it was never there in the first place. I pulled into my driveway as my garage door slowly rolled open. The sun was starting to set, but I still had a few hours of daylight left. Looking through the scattered boxes on either side of the garage was enough to trigger another wave of memories. My breath caught in my chest and I found myself gripping my steering wheel with rage as hot tears rolled down my cheeks, onto my ragged beard and into my mouth through my clenched teeth. I had cried plenty since the day of the accident, but this was different. There wasn’t a racking sadness behind the tears now, it was a red rage. I felt my blood boiling, my mind furious and longing for someone to blame. Anyone to direct my rage at. Something to turn my hatred to. I don’t know how long I sat in the driveway, seething through my teeth and clenching my eyes until stars and blobs of lights formed behind them, but when I finally looked up, I was in the parking lot right next to the intersection where my wife died. I was parked and facing the same light post where she rolled to a stop. I have no memory of the drive, or even being aware of moving through the streets and following traffic laws, but a quick glance around showed no flashing lights or destruction that would hint to reckless driving. I was alone in the parking lot. The sun had gone down. I glanced at the clock and saw that it was 1:45 in the morning. How was that possible? I had gotten home before the sun had even set. Even if I had been taking the longest way possible, this parking lot was only three minutes from our house. ‘Is this you, Universe?’ I thought to myself. Working my jaw a little, I could still feel the tension from when I was grinding my teeth together in a blind rage. ‘Is this what you do for fun? Why the fuck do I need to see where my wife died? Why the fuck do I need to be this close to her death? It’s already all over the house, on the looks I get from her family, her coworkers, anyone who knew her. Who touched her. They are a constant reminder. So why the FUCK DO I NEED TO BE HERE RIGHT NOW?!’ With a blink, I was outside of my car, about twenty feet away from it. I looked down at my body, still feeling the rage that was slowly being replaced with confusion. I glanced back to the spot where my wife had rolled to a stop. I was about ten feet away. I looked at my watch, still 1:45. No time had passed since my mind had folded in on itself in a rage, screaming internally at the universe for doing this to me. Fear had started to creep into my mind when, with another blink, though I hadn’t closed my eyes, I was standing in front of the pole that my wife's car had been stopped by. I was standing in the street, but with the late hour and a quick glance just to be sure, I was alone in the intersection. From where I stood I could see a slight discoloration around the base of the pole. A slight dent from where her car hit, maybe going a couple miles an hour. I took a few steps to get a closer look. There was paint from her car rubbed off onto the dull metal of the post. The orange paint was definitely from her car. It was such a random color. They didn’t even offer the same color on any newer models of her car, as it apparently didn’t sell as well as they had hoped. I remembered being almost embarrassed by her choice of color. But it was her choice, and it matched her personality; random and bold. My watch still showed 1:45, even though the second hand was moving normally. The fact that I was popping through space without losing time was a faint worry in the back of my mind as I stared at the paint scrape on the pole. The movement in my peripheral vision was almost unnoticed. But then it was accompanied by the sound of pages fluttering. I looked to my right, and along the side of the road, near the storm drain was the book. I recognized it instantly. It wasn’t a book, it was the book. I took a step towards it, but then stopped. I looked at my watch. 1:45, second hand still flying by. I looked around me. The streets were empty. Not a sound but the wind in the trees beyond the parking lot where my car was sitting, still parked and waiting. I took another few steps towards the book and could finally see that it was indeed lying face down. The back of the book still obscured by dirt and grime, so I still couldn’t tell what type of book it was, the pages still warped with rain and neglect, pushing the cover of the book over. If I were laying down on my side, I could possibly see how the book ended before I even knew the plot. My hands hurt. I looked down at them and saw that they were balled up into tight fists, but I had nothing to fight. There was nothing around but the wind, the book, and me. Me standing near a drainage ditch, staring at the impossible existence of both the book and me being here with no explanation. I took the last few steps and picked it up. The weight was much more than I ever expected. Turning it over in my hands, it was quickly apparent that the weather and traffic had torn away whatever title and information used to be on the back and front. The book was not destroyed, however, and I could see vague depictions of stars and galaxies on the back and front covers. But the spine still had some information on it, and I could make out the writing that said ‘There it is’. I nodded. ‘There it is. The Universe.’, I said out loud, and turned the book again to open it. I was smiling to myself, as I opened the book closer to the middle, instead of the front like people normally do with books. It took a second to realize what I was looking at. It wasn’t words. It wasn’t an ancient script lost to the ages. Each page I looked at was clear and legible, but it wasn’t writing and it wasn’t pictures. It was the experiences of everything my wife had felt from the moment she met me, to the moment she died. Everything insignificant and casual and ignored and in-between, every fart and blemish and missed connection and racist encounter and unexplained or ill-advised act was there in full color to my entire being. It was as if I was my wife during those moments. I was there for the shame she felt when she made a social faux pas, but I was there when she sang like a rock star in front of dozens of people, culminating in a standing ovation by not only our mutual friends, but the strangers in the bar as well. I was her when the.. Oh god! I can see myself! I can feel her eyes on me over the years! I can see and feel her true feelings about me. I know how she really felt when she was presented with my... my ... ME! With me! I know how ridiculous I was a lot of the time, I see how she felt when dealing with us... ME! She was so patient and understanding, and we were always so... Not ‘We’, just ‘Me’... ‘I’ was just so... I wasn’t there. I could have done so much more. I could have made us better, but I was always too afraid. I feel the book sliding from my hands as I fall to my knees. Are they my knees or just the knees the book wants me to feel like I’m kneeling on. It’s just me now. It wasn’t her. It was my subconscious projecting itself onto things. I’m kneeling in front of the pole. The book isn’t in the drainage ditch. It’s not right next to me where it just fell, or maybe fell in my mind. The book is nowhere. The pole in front of me gets brighter for a second before I turn my head. The headlights must have just turned on. I turn to see where they come from, but all I can see is the orange color of the car. Behind the glare, I see the silhouette of a woman limp behind the steering wheel. A beautiful woman. A woman the Universe sent to me. As she gets closer, I see her closed eyes open for a split second and gaze at me with recognition. Thanks a lot, Universe.