So You Wanna Know What a Roller Dog is

By Maria Kozakova
Tonightwell, tonight is the night that I realized who I am.
Not in a great breakthrough sort of way.
Not even in a, Well, I know exactly what I want to be when I grow up, way.
No deep thought hit me as a bolt of lightning, I didnt come into the hands of
some
great epiphany, and I didnt burst up fully awake in the middle of the night with
stars in my
eyes. Ironically, though, Ben did say they reflected the night sky pretty damn near
perfectly
as I leaned back in that rusty pick-up truck.
Yes.
It was me, Maria Kozakova, known un-hillbilly, half asleep in the back of a
very large,
very republican looking pickup parked around the side of a crusty gas station miles
away
from home.
How did I get there?
Lord knows.
Here is what, at that very moment, I did know. The three other people laying
in that
pickup truck were seniors that I had just met that morning. Fact. I had also just
gotten back

from my first debate competition, and had never felt more alive. Fact. I was now
somewhere
inActually?
I have no idea. But, also, fact- it was now 12:23, and I had promised my dad
that Id be
home by 9 at the latest. Last thing I was completely sure of in that exact moment:
Tobys
face looked dangerously to that of mine after eating eight snack pack puddings last
week.
JESUS! I screamed- nay, shrieked into the surrounding dark, chased away only by
the
sickly yellow streetlights.
Come on, man, Daniel yelped, his face twisting into a grimace as the smell
of the
former roller dog wafted
up,
up,
but not necessarily away. Yes, Toby had hurled the entirety of his stomach's
contents over
the side of the pickup and onto the cracked parking lot below. Ben gingerly craned
his neck
over the pile, taking in the sight.
It looks almost at home between the cigarette butts and filthy gum, he
noted,
running his hand through his blonde clump of hair and barely masking the disgust in
his
tone. I threw a Mountain Dew at Toby.

Get it together, man. Resolved: Roller dogs should be outlawed by all 50

states, as well as the District of Columbia. Immediately. Aff? Will cause vomiting-
-And awful diarrhea, finished Toby, clutching his stomach and the Mountain
Dew.
Neg: thasthes like thweet Jesus himthelf came untho this filthy Kum & Go to
rain hith
tearth of joy over these roller dogs, added Daniel, his face hole full of yet another
one. And
his specific dog had a lovely mixture of ketchup, ranch, and onion sauce slathered
on top. I
tore my eyes away from the ungodly and gruesome sight, looking around me
instead.
Tobys quiet groans, as well as Ben and Daniels laughter faded away from me,
replaced
instead by all that was in front of me. Not one car was to be seen at the gas station,
but I
was quite certain of a steady hum of traffic on the road behind my back, the hum
sliced
through with a sharp screech every now and then.
A cool breeze flew through my hair, whipping it around my face with a sting,
and I
pulled my sweatshirt tighter around me.
The neon pink sign screaming OPEN at me from the dusty glass door fizzed
and
crackled with every mosquito and moth that dared come too close to its deadly
heat, and I
watched a slow stream of some sort of sappy liquid wind its way from the nearest
pump

closer and closer. It gathered tiny pebbles, more like pieces of sand and dust, on its
way,
carrying them into new and far off places. I myself was in a new and far off place,
and God, I
had never been happier. I glanced up. I could see the dark outline of the cashier
inside the
store, bent over a textbook from the looks of it. He couldnt stop rubbing his eyes
and
yawning, and I felt such an incredible sympathy towards him. As I turned my gaze
even
further up, way up high to the constellations,
I started thinking.
I started thinking that I didnt want to end up like that kid, working night
shifts just to
pay for tuition, maybe even simply something to put on his plate.
I started thinking how I didnt want to be trapped in that sort of dead end,
one which I
had a first class ticket to- Youre smart, right? Hey, what college are you going
to? Better
start looking into the available scholarships! Have you studied enough for that
test? 92%?!
Thats not going to get you very far!
I was getting so sick of having to plan everything, of having a lot of important
things
decided for me, of watching me and my friends silently collapse under the
expectations.
I started thinking that tonight, I could not especially see the clouds- but I
knew they

were there because it was just a dark splotch, void of those small twinkling lights.
Tonight,
the clouds were merely absences of stars.
I didnt want to become a slave to that what was expected of me.
I wanted to be an absence of those things, to simply exist as I did at that
moment;
somewhere far away from home, from who I was supposed to be. That is who I
was. Maybe
not who I would always be, but at that specific moment, I was simply an absence of
expectation.
Daniel and Bens whoops as they shoved Toby out the back of the pickup and
jumped out after him drove me back into cold, hard reality. I catapulted myself after
them,
dodging the pile of hurl and flinging myself into the backseat.
Lets get you home, Ben laughed, glancing at the time.

Some things are hard to write about. After something happens to you, you go
to write
it down, and either you over dramatize it, or underplay it, exaggerate the wrong
parts, or
ignore the important ones. At any rate, you never write it quite the way you want to,
and it
usually ends up as an angsty mess. I am simply trying to remember this night, to
hold onto it
for as long as I can. I am clenching my knuckles around it, digging in my fingernails,
the
words I have lobbing themselves around my brain. For I will never let go of this
night. God

knows there arent many like it.