Can You Think of Anything Else?

1

“We can’t even feel anymore,” the taxi driver sighed, “’cause we’re all medicated. It’s like that Weezer song,” he mused, chuckling bitterly. “We are all on drugs,” he sang to himself as his passenger pondered his words appreciatively, never having thought them before herself. 2

“I guess,” she replied. At this, the driver’s gaze, instigated by his surprise at having evoked a response, shifted to his mirror; normally, people chose to ignore him when he set off on one of his rants. For years, he’d been speaking just to speak, to unload his thoughts onto another. He noticed that the girl had fair hair tied up in a ponytail. “But,” she continued, uncertain of the worthiness of her words as she noticed his attention, “my friend’s sister has A.D.D. and I know the pills she takes really help her…”3

“It’s all because we name things, label them!” the taxi driver exploded in a rush of ardent annoyance. “Naming something makes it real, a problem to be dealt with. Everyone seems to have some sort of disorder these days,” he grumbled in resentment, glaring at the road before him. 4

“Yeah, that’s definitely true,” she conceded hesitantly, “but do you really think that if we didn’t name things, we wouldn’t have any problems?”5

“People always have problems,” the taxi driver lamented, “but they make so many of them themselves.” Shaking his head, he explained, “So, I guess I’m saying we’d have fewer problems, if we didn’t name everything that ailed us. I mean,” he continued, swatting at a mosquito, “we’re always so full of dread. And so we put all our efforts into avoiding things.” Pausing, he retrieved his black coffee from a cup-holder. “Will I get cancer if I eat popcorn? Will my asthma kill me if I go on a jog?” He took a swig from his cup. “Who the hell knows?”6

“Oh, God,” the teenager in the backseat winced, “I hate killing.”7

He’d almost forgotten her presence, but now her words simultaneously confused and intrigued him. 8

“What?”9

“Sorry,” she replied, somewhat embarrassed, regretting her outburst, “I just killed a mosquito.”10

“Oh.” He wondered what had caused her reaction; revulsion or compassion for the life she’d destroyed.11

An uncomfortable silence full of unspoken thoughts ensued. The girl looked out the window, feigning interest in a herd of cows. The man stared at the highway, feigning concentration as he drove, mile after mundane mile.12

“I just,” the passenger began, coughing to revive her voice, “don’t think we have the right to kill. The more I think about it, the more it makes sense to me.”13

“Huh,” the taxi driver mused. “What about war, then? You’re saying we never have the right to kill?”14

Frowning, she attempted to free her thoughts in a remotely eloquent manner. “It’s stupid.” She grimaced at her failure; her ideas always sounded so much better in her head. She glanced at the mirror, expecting to see him rolling his eyes in exasperated disgust; but instead he was nodding, which she assumed could only be a good sign. Heartened by this, she continued, “The soldiers really don’t have anything against one another. They’re just taking orders, just butchering each another because of their governments’ dissention. What good does that do? It all seems so pointless!”15

“So what do you advise? Instead of war?”16

“Conversation! Some sort of dialogue between countries. Even as a last resort, war makes absolutely no sense.”17

“Except in defense,” he interjected reasonably.18

Deflating, she slumped back into her seat, defeated. “I know,” she relented, eyes fixed on her flip-flop clad feet, “because if one country has an army, so do all the others, if only to defend themselves. It’s just a…”19

“Vicious cycle?”20

“Yeah, exactly. It’ll never end if we keep on going like this.”21

“So what do we do?”22

“Start over.”23

“How?” As the question escaped his lips, he realized that, though she could not possibly offer him one, he needed an answer. 24

“No idea.”25

Nodding regretfully at her lack of insight, he asked, “What was your street again?”26

“Uh, 13 Mead Road.”27

“Next right?”28

“Yup.”29

As he stopped before her house, a dull, boorish brown in the afternoon sun, she unbuckled her seatbelt, paused. “You know, I went to this town, once, where chains, like McDonalds’s or Wal-Mart, weren’t allowed. It was a great place…”30

“So you think,” he clarified, uncertainly eager, “that people should be forced to rewind, to…start over?”31

She grimaced slightly, disliking control, over-management, wary of megalomaniacs. “Can you think of anything else?”32

She left him with a generous tip, a smile, and a question he would brood over for the rest of the day.33