After a few hundred miles of Midwest rain and open road the landscape reminded Ashley of soggy cornflakes.
Ashley hated cornflakes.
I heard what you told the hitchhiker, she said. I thought I was dreaming.
Jolted back to reality from his stoned stupor, Sterling did his best to defend himself.
What hitchhiker?
I don’t want to go to George Floyd, Minnesota anymore, Ashley said.
Where do you want to go?
Pig City.
Where’s that?
Pig City is the biggest industrial pig farm in the American heartland. Meatpacking killers working there exterminate more pigs in a day than anywhere in the nation. Schweinhund humans. I want you to drop me off. Then leave. I’ll free the pigs all by myself.
Ashley, it wasn’t me talking to the hitchhiker. I wasn’t even there.
That parallel universe where you try to hide isn’t going to work anymore, Sterling. I mean, I let you get away with that nonsense because I liked you. I don’t like you anymore. You’re mean.
I was just trying to impress him by playing my antifa card.
You don’t have an antifa card, Sterling, you don’t even have a driver’s license. You turned our lives into one bad trip, like the brown acid in the Woodstock movie.
You’re a trip.
See what I mean?
What’s a schweinhund?
A terrible German insult that means pig dog.
I thought you loved pigs.
I love dogs, too, Ashley said.
But you spit the word.
Mating a pig and a dog is like marrying your cousin.
My cousin Barb is like really hot.
You want to die, Sterling?
I was just saying.
That’s your whole problem.
Is it, like, so wrong not to trust government, to hate everything and everybody, to want to tear it down to build it up?
Burn the village to save it?
Exactly, Sterling said.
Baby killer.
What’s that even mean, Ashley?
You ever heard of Vietnam?
Foodies love their fish sauce.
Like, the war, Sterling?
What war?
Vietnam? Afghanistan? Iraq?
Yeah, I rock, too, Ashley.
Your brain is mush, Sterling.
I don’t feel so good.
What’s the matter?
I got chills
Sterling hacked, wheezed and coughed.
I got a shortness of breath, like, difficulty breathing
What else?
Fatigue, man
Yeah?
Muscle and body aches
OK.
A headache and a sore throat
Your nose is runny and you do sound congested, Sterling.
I can’t taste or smell my crunchy, flaming Cheetos anymore, Ashley.
I’d definitely say you got something wrong with you, Sterling.
It’s getting worse, too.
What?
Persistent pain and pressure in my chest, Sterling said
You sound newly confused, too, Ashley said. But you always sound confused. And you seem to have trouble staying awake. OMG, Sterling, look at your lips and face. They’re blue.
I’m getting nauseous and feel like I’m going to vomit, Ashley.
Pull over.
Diarrhea, too, Ashley.
When Ashley and Sterling got out of the van, Ashley ran around to where Sterling stood bent over at the waist. Without as much as a wave she jumped into the van and pulled away.
Sterling fainted, falling into a roadside ditch where he cursed his former life partner, exactly what you would expect of a pig dog.
Ashley didn’t even look in the rearview mirror.
Maybe I better get tested, she thought.
A tiny sound came from under the backseat.
Oink, the piglet said.
Oink.