A Road Sign by Mark Rosenblum

Errant Styrofoam escapes an open top rubbish　truck on a humid, June afternoon. Jagged chunks of buoyant packing　material float above the traffic, journeying along a bouncy, warm current of　 air. They dance above the vehicles until touching down on black　pavement. Their respite does not last long. They explode under　oncoming tires, white shards engulfing the highway.

Returning from her aunt’s funeral, Tina brushes a tear from her cheek just as she drives into the eye of the Styrofoam tempest. She travels a car length behind an Empire State Moving truck. Barely visible is the truck’s deco-style, black and white painted logo. When Tina glimpses the insignia — a New York City skyline amid a whiteout — she recalls the snow globe her Aunt gifted her as a child, and, like a frozen memory melting into the present, Tina is with her aunt again, smiling, as she gazes through the windshield at the summer snow.

© 2012 Mark Rosenblum

Mark Rosenblum–a New York native who now lives in Southern California–misses the taste of real pizza and good deli food. His work has been featured in Boston Literary Magazine, Everyday Fiction, Flashes in the Dark, Pure Slush, Six Sentences, Nailpolish Stories, Yellow Mama and Six Minute Magazine. He has work upcoming in Sleet Magazine and Short, Fast and Deadly. He has also appeared in several anthologies.

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