Something off about tonight. A discord in the air. The kind of night that drives you from your house, despite the certain touch of chaos outside.

My apartment still doesn’t feel right to me, and while the college neighbors come and go next door, shouting, drunk, I’m not inclined to curl up and stay, and so I climb in my car and drive around town, getting lost in the flow of the white and red car lights drifting and floating, passing, stopping, going.

On the campus, two squad cars with their flashing lights spinning and twinkling, an irregular flickering display that makes me wince, throwing buildings into first blood red relief, splash of blue, photobulb white and back again, dodging and swooping and sliding across brick. An ambulance arrives but no one gets out.

A bicycle hangs from a speed limit sign.

A man in boxer shorts weaves down the sidewalk.

There’s something vacant about the whole scene. It’s not that there’s any lack of people – though I think that’s a part of it, squad cars without cops, passing cars only mindless machines, the empty distant glaze in the drunkard’s eyes. The place stinks of a war zone long forgotten, the riot after the crowd disperses, a street sweeper kicking at broken glass, a vulture picking meat from a bone. The sight makes me sick.

The headlights of the car behind me hurt my eyes when I look in the mirror.

Pull to a traffic light and look at the driver of the beaten, paint-peeling, non-color pickup truck next to me. He doesn’t smile, his lips pressed together, his eyes narrowed. He doesn’t look at the light when it changes to green, but nods slowly before pressing the gas and driving away.

Taillights flare.

Time to go back to the apartment.

The complex is quiet, a stillness like a wife waiting to be sure that her husband has indeed passed out flat on the couch before collecting the bottles. A black shadow in the night slides out his door, grabs his skateboard and growls into the orange-lit drive.

Deadbolt fastened, eyes heavy, curled tight in a comforter. My lights are down save the dim glow of my laptop next to me, and as I nudge the curtain to look out the front window, I press my hand to the glass and see only my reflection looking back.