Honk Twice

It had been moving since the beginning of days, the first target of graffiti, marked well before the art in the Caves of Lascaux. Styles changed as miles and ages passed, from the obscene clerical metaphors of Sumeria, to the elegant nightmares in ancient Greece, or the earthy transcendence of Hindi, and especially, the bald obscenities of Rome. But wherever, whenever, the varied and foul eloquence described its cargo.
Its appearance changed, blending into the world it moved through. Traditionally it had been a lumbering cart, always threatening to spill its precariously over-packed load upon crowded roads, a constant frustration for other wayfarers, taking up more than its share of the road and moving slower than other traffic. All who saw it wondered how the mad jumble was held together, most wayfarers being ignorant of the simple but powerful of spells holding chaos at bay.
Still some recognized it for what it was, shamans and priests saw the terrors within and returned to their sanctuaries and their gods with renewed fervor.
 
“Tyler, you’ll be the end of me,” said her mother when she was six. She’d climbed the big oak tree again. A minor act of defiance in itself, but this time she’d done it in response to a challenge to the neighborhood boys who accused her of being too chicken to jump off the third big branch up into the pile of leaves that they’d gathered. She proved them wrong, but they’d been careless with their collection and it contained many branches, some splintered and broken. 
One of these went clear through the muscle in her calf.
When they saw the blood, and then, when the pain had registered and Tyler had screamed, they’d scattered.
So she had to walk home. Four blocks, stepping wide around the branch with every step.
Her mother had been typically and acerbically horrified. Old Doc Kim was little better, sighing and muttering and shaking his head. Muttering, Tyler was sure, about how little girls in Canada knew noting of discipline or propriety. 
He gave her one child’s Tylenol and waited five minutes before removing the stick.
And Tyler learned the nature of pain.
 
“Tyler, you’ll be the end of me,” said her BFF Melanie, her voice hard and critical. “Sixteen was supposed to be sweet,” thought Tyler as she listened to her friend’s scolding. She’d gotten drunk at the right party, but apparently she’d kissed the wrong boy. Some skinny emo kid who’d actually listened to her hopes and horrors, and in a fit of impaired behavior she’d jumped him. And while he’d not complained at the time, now he didn’t seem to keen on hanging out with some jock girl. 
“Philosophical differences,” said the boy. 
“Bullshit,” said Tyler
But Melanie seemed to agree with the boy’s attitude about keeping social circles separate. And Tyler’s truculent attitude seemed to please neither her, nor her other friends. 
And so Tyler learned the lesson of ostracism.
 
“Tyler, you’ll be the end of me,” said her boyfriend – sorry, soon to be ex-boyfriend, her supposed soul-mate, as he proceeded to dump her, one week before her twenty-sixth birthday no less. 
“I’m not ready for all of this… stuff. Why is it that all you women have to talk about the future, about settling down? Why can’t you just live in the moment?”
Tyler had been willing to forgive Brandon for ‘living in the moment’ with her friend Claire two weeks ago. But apparently that little taste of strange after three years together had been enough to turn his head. And she just knew, knowing Claire, that it would end with two kids and a white picket fence. 
And so Tyler discovered the world of heartache.
 
 
“Tyler, you’ll be the end of me,” said Mark as he closed the door to his office. He waved her towards a seat on the far side of his huge desk.
“I was entirely within standards of professional conduct to point out the rather obvious shortcomings of the derivatives we are selling. Hell, I’m legally obligated to do so.”
“Why don’t you leave that to the fucking lawyers, that’s why we hire them. God knows we pay enough in retainer fees. And now there’s a good chance that we will lose this client. And they’ll just buy from another investment firm – all of these derivatives are based on the same economic fundamentals. So why shouldn’t we make the money, eh?”
“And what about our professional ethics?”
“I’ve never seen ethics keep an investor happy. Just money. And you may have cost us a boatload. Look Tyler, if this had been a simple lapse in judgment, then I could overlook this, you’re bright and a good worker. But you are too negative; we need people with a more positive, can-do attitude. It’s just not a good fit. But hey, you’re what? Thirty-six? Plenty of time to find a career that fits in with your, ah… ethics.”
And Tyler learned the joy of unemployment.
 
 
“Tyler, you’ll be the end of me,” said Paul over the headset as she drove down the road. “If you walk away from me or the company now, I’ll prove you both crazy and incompetent. The house, the company and our daughter will be mine. 
“Where the fuck did all this shit about ‘spiritual development’ come from anyway? We have shit to do, year end is coming.”
Tyler could hear both the quotes and the contempt in David’s voice. A fine attitude for a man she’d tied her life to, to promote ethical investments.
“David, I just feel that we’ve gone off track. We’re promoting too many questionable investments, just because the return looks appealing. I got out of that attitude for a reason – so did you, if you recall.”
“It’s a business, Tyler, that’s what we do.”
“This was supposed to be different, we were supposed to be different, about balance. All you seem to do now is work. It’s all you want to do. We make enough, but you want more. When was the last time you spent quality time with our daughter?”
“I neither know nor care. She’s more your daughter than mine, you saw to that. But I’ll tell you this, you leave before year-end and it’ll be some time before you get any quality time with her. Even longer if you want it unsupervised.”
And Tyler became acquainted with blind rage.
 
And then she saw it. Graffiti on the side of a truck that was veering between all three lanes of the highway. Moving faster than the other traffic, yet still managing to slow it all. 
Honk twice for the end of days. 
She thought about all the times people had seen her at fault, as the end of things, about how they’d blame her for having a will, a sense of self.
She honked, twice.
And smiled as she watched a ribbon of darkness unfurl and spread behind the truck as it traveled down the highway.