Praying for Sleep

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Like a cradle, the hearse rocked him gently.

The old vehicle creaked along a country road, the asphalt cracked and root-humped. He believed the journey had so far taken several hours though he wouldn’t have been surprised to find that they’d been on the road for days or weeks. At last he heard the squeal of bad brakes and was jostled by an abrupt turn. Then they were on a good road, a state road, and accelerating quickly.

He rubbed his face across a satiny label sewn inside the bag. He couldn’t see the label in the darkness but he remembered the words elegantly stitched in black thread on yellow cloth.

Union Rubber Products

Trenton , NJ 08606

MADE IN USA

He caressed this label with his ample cheek and sucked air through the minuscule opening where the zipper hadn’t completely seated. The smoothness of the hearse’s transit suddenly troubled him. He felt he was falling straight down to hell, or maybe into a well where he’d be wedged immobile, head down, forever…

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