Modern Flash Fiction

The lane appeared in the middle of the night. She didn’t sleep at night anymore so when it happened, Jess woke Erin to wake up the kids.

“Come on,” she said to Erin. “We’ve gotta go before it disappears.”

Erin packed the kids’ blankets and stuffed animals and by the time they were in the back seat they were already out.

Erin was quiet, probably just tired. Their street was empty but when they got to the end of the block the Johnson family was in the rearview mirror doing the same thing.

“Suckers,” Jess said, watching the Johnson family lag behind.

She made a right turn toward the city. From there, they could hook up with the freeway.

“It just appeared,” Jess explained. “I saw it on Twitter. People are posting videos. KTNP has a chopper. Nobody knows where it came from, it just appeared.”

“Mmm,” Erin said.

Erin used to talk more on trips. Before the kids were born, they always went places. There was the juggler on the train tracks, whom Jess saw on Instagram. They parked their car in a row of others and watched him toss bowling pins into the air for an hour. There was the rocket that had landed in the lake, and did donuts in the water. The house with the balloons on the top, like from the Pixar movie, who could only ever get enough air to hop a few feet off the ground, like a child learning to jump. They watched it hop all the way to the next street before a bird popped the balloons, and everyone clapped.

But when the kids were born they stopped, or Erin stopped, and mostly Jess had to watch everything fun happen from her phone on the couch in the dark.

When they got close to the city, the cars started to pile up.

“God dammit,” Jess said. “Everyone has the same idea.” All these suckers.

Erin’s head was against the window and her eyes were closed but she wasn’t asleep, Jess could tell. Although maybe she was pretending.

She had always been down for the adventures, even would pack snacks and drinks and laugh. She wasn’t as serious about them as Jess, but she was supportive. Jess always found her a bit condescending, as if Erin was only there for her. Couldn’t she see how incredible some of these things were? Life was happening all around them. Erin thought maybe someday they’d be the one to find something, or to see something and share it online and summon the masses or, hell, to even do something worthy of a packed freeway or a packed lake parking lot or bumper-to-bumper traffic on a freeway. Her whole life, basically, she thought this. That someday she’d do something, and then something big and notable and newspaper worthy would happen.

But when the kids were born and they both gave birth and spent all those nights at home, they lost their chances and things passed by. She’d never been much for sleep, but lately, in the past couple years, it had been all together elusive, even pointless.

They pulled onto the freeway and Jess went left, inch by inch, to the far lane. In a couple of miles, past the city, is where it started.

“This isn’t moving,” Jess said. “Even in the carpool lane.”

Erin didn’t stir.

“Wake up,” Jess said. “Please.”

“I am awake,” Erin mumbled.

“Can I get over?” Jess asked, trying to see into the other lane.

“What’s the point? Everyone is going the same place and no one is moving.”

“God fucking dammit,” Jess screamed, hitting the steering wheel with a smack, waking the kids, and sending Erin into a tizzy.

“God dammit, Jess! Calm down!” Both kids were crying now, mostly because the other was, and Erin finally moved and leaned back and tried to calm them,

“Now you’re awake,” Jess said.

“Go fuck yourself,” Erin answered. “Go fucking fuck yourself.”

“I’m just trying to show my family something,” Jess said. “You should be thankful.”

“Yeah, a new road.”

“A new freeway lane, out of nowhere! Where did it come from? Did someone build it? They couldn’t have built it that fast. Imagine how many people it would take! And for no one to notice the construction? Think about it. This is finally something amazing, out of nowhere.”

A silent mile later, Erin pulled out her phone and moved her thumb up and down.

Whatever. Everyone was going to see it and they were going to be a part of it. They’d probably be on the news. The sun was going to come up in an hour, too, so maybe they’d be on the mysterious and glorious new lane when it happened and they could be there and watch it and have a real family moment, watching the sun come up.

“We need to talk,” Erin said, but up ahead something was happening. People were getting out of their cars and taking pictures.

“Hang on,” Jess said, and climbed out of the car. “What’s going on?” Jess said, walking to the car ahead where a guy was holding a kid with a blanket. “Why’s everyone out of their cars?”

“We’re here,” he said.

“What?”

The guy turned around. It was the Johnson dad. How had they gotten ahead of them?

“This is the new lane,” he explained. “I guess it started back there on the carpool. This is it. So much for helping the traffic!”

Jess looked around at all the cars, all the people. The lane looked like the others. However it got here, it did a good job of blending in. “Well fuck,” she said. Erin must have distracted her when it happened, or the kids. “I guess we missed it. Where did everyone come from? We can’t even tell it’s the new lane.”

“Pretty crazy,” Johnson said. “Pretty amazing.”

Kirk Sprockett is writer based in Southern California, where he received an MFA in Creative Writing from University of California, Riverside. His fiction has appeared in Touchstone, Slackjaw and Midcult, a local Los Angeles magazine. He also self-publishes two comic series, NOT YET and TONIGHT’S TOP STORY.