My father and I had driven around an hour and a half already. The stars began to pop up on the farthest range of the horizon right beneath the curtains of orange and scarlet. Conversation died down around the 23 mile marker. Now only the fuzzy tune of a passing area’s radio station was heard in the car. A light rain began, shading the innards of the car, and leaving speckles of shadow on my exposed arms. We passed another exit; the radio station cut off. Silence. The tires wheezed underneath of me. The pavement roared back to them. The trees in the window let out a sort of harmony to the gasp of air in the passenger window. I scrolled through my phone, looking back through old photos to avoid the awkward tension building up in the vehicle. Dad wasn’t much of a talker, but when he spoke it was always something uncalled for and I sat still, not in the mood for any sort of uncalled for discussion. Just a few photos into my album the radio choked back to life, slowly but surely. This time an aged man’s voice spewed off a series of today’s headlines. We only really tuned in on the ending half of his show. All I caught clear enough to remember was as follows:

“...12 students are confirmed dead with 18 more injured. Police are still on the scene, the shooter is currently thought to be 11th grader Levi Jenkins of Northside High. In other news, a recent tweet went viral showing Maxine, a golden retriever, saving her family in the aftermath of Hurricane Julie. A video surfaced of the dog dragging…”

The radio fell back to nothingness once more.

“Crazy world out there,” Dad almost murmured to himself.

“Yeah, crazy world,” I replied. 

“What was that he said? Something about a dog?” He chuckled, shaking his head in disbelief. “...crazy.”