“Borderlands” by John Zic

A short story by alumnus John Zic (fiction, ’00) appears online in Issue 6 of The Museum of Americana:

The four men huddled cross-legged on flattened cardboard boxes. Each time a car passed on the Interstate overhead, a sharp wall of water spiked into the air and splashed onto the ground. The men didn’t pay attention to the cars, just as they didn’t pay attention to the water. Their level of comfort was directly proportional to their ability to distort perception. They’d accustomed themselves to the braided hum of tires on pavement, how the tires slammed over the seam in the roadbed and the entire overpass kicked. Background noise, tricks of the scenery. Things went easier if you didn’t pay too much attention. All the comings and goings, the passersby, all with destinations elsewhere, north or south, the belly or the heart, anywhere but here. At night, the men worked. During the day, they slept on the cardboard.

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