He was standind outside the police station, his eyes fixed in the distance, where a weak sun was just beginning to rise. In his hands, he was holding a denim jacket and a black baseball cap. He didn't realize it at the time, but he was squeezing the cap so hard, that its rim had broken. But such detail now seemed to belong to a world he had left behind.
His truck was right there, the stains on its green color looking strange under the orange light of the dawn. He looked at it, but didn't feel like driving. The truth was, the alcohol still swimming in his blood stream caused enough of a distraction for anyone to steer clear of a car. If only he had felt that way the night before.
His mind drifted back to the night before, while making his way back home. The sun had already crawled higher on the celestial dome, shining a light on him, he wished would never be shone again. The strip- bar, the girls... The sexual promises, the obscene cravings... the threeway promised and almost fulfilled... the bottles of whiskey consumed in order to get that red haired stripper to dance only for him. The buzzing in his ears, the red blanket covering most of his consciousness, most of his rememberance of the night before...
How one moment changes your life for ever. How one decision can turn everything upside down. Why take the car and not a taxi? Why decide to drive when redhead has offered to do it herself? Why go left, when you can always go right? Why not lock yourself up and never see the light of day again?
The sheriff said he was looking to many years in prison. But it will not be the iron bars holding him locked up in a cell that will be keeping him in prison. His prison will be his whole life, until his final breath. Until that final, redemptive moment when his conscience will die and the sight of his son's dead eyes staring at him from his car's front wheels will stop haunting him.
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