Visions of Suburban Bliss

At the intersection of Forest View Heights Avenue and the entrance to Lakefront Trail, Richard's cul-de-sac, someone had set up a sweat lodge.

Richard realized that the sight of the low, domed teepee made of canvas and bent branches next to the road didn't even surprise him. Not after the strange things he'd imagined already today. He took a tentative lick from the sucker in his right hand, a gift from one of the kids for helping with their bike. "I only licked it a coupla times," the blue-eyed boy had said.

He parked his Expedition in and, sucker in hand, walked up to the smoking structure. Low chanting came from inside the front flap.

"This should be fun," he said, bending down and lifting the flap. He crawled inside.

Through a haze of smoke and steam, perched on the far side of a fire made of green sticks piled onto a metal garbage can lid, sat a wrinkled, brown-skinned man. The man had wiry gray hair tied back with a piece of leather. Three white feathers stuck up from behind him, jammed into the piece of leather and his hair. The man stopped chanting. He nodded and, without a word, motioned for Richard to sit across from him.

Richard started to sweat even before he sat down next to the fire. The teepee seemed much bigger on the inside than it had on the outside. Richard felt like he was shrinking.

The man across from him wafted smoke from the fire into his sweat-stained face and breathed deeply.

Trying to cool off, Richard pulled his dress shirt over his head. Before inhaling the smoke, he passed the Indian the barely-licked sucker as barter.

The Indian across from him smiled as he took the gift, then closed his eyes.

Richard did the same, still breathing deeply. Sweat had already covered his chest and soft belly, trickling from his armpits onto his pant.

When he exhaled, he saw a vision.

Continued...

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What the critics said about "Visions of Suburban Bliss":

"Richard Toliver, a black man, was proud to have moved himself and his family into an upscale white bread suburban track in North Carolina. He reflects on this as he does his long commute home on a hot summer's day. And as increasingly surreal things happen, it's the only thought that keeps him steady. Yes, his whole life seems wrapped up in the artificial niceness of the suburban good life... It's weird, just how easily suburban bliss can turn seriously weird."
— Sherwood Smith, SF Site