Intrusion (The Interstate)

by Emily Russell

Drive into the ditch!

But I don’t! I try not to.

If you fall asleep right now, you will slide off beyond the guardrails and into the ditch.

It’s a short stretch of interstate that paves the space between my parents’ old house and the border of Canada—only 15 exits—which are the only miles you can drive without a passport and a plan.

My plan is thinking about how easy it would be to—

Redirect.

Because if you start to think about.

The problem is that this stretch of interstate is flat and straight and wide and familiar. Which leaves plenty of space for interruptions which shout drive into the diTCH DO IT YOU WON’T.

Exit 262 and I try not to think about Eliza who was in the backseat of her friend’s dad’s car on the first happy day of her otherwise-sad life, which had seemed never-ending until it ended, instantly, when a Jeep driving 120 miles-per-hour slammed into the back of her friend’s dad’s smaller, nondescript car and sent them flying, or falling, the record is unclear, the record being her body, which was nowhere near the car and didn’t look anything like a body when it was recovered.

I’m driving away from my parents’ house, 263, 264, 265, but when I drive I have to try to distance myself from my inheritance. Try to keep my own hands on the wheel, and not the part of my hands that come from my father, which know only rage. One middle finger up, one palm on the horn, one index finger rolling down a window, one clasp around a full drink thrown out the window, one hand on the wheel swerving it in and out of the right lane because I can, because I can!, because I feel like it, because now we’re all gonna die, because this is the last time I let someone treat me like that, because you started it, because I said so, because!

I redirect, and look, I’m making progress. I’m at Exit 266 and not interested in DRIVING INTO THE DITCH LOOK HOW SOFT AND WET AND WARM AND EASY IT WOULD BE.

No, I pass it without incident, and to get ahead of it, I pass cars in the left lane. 267, 268. And by the time I’m at Exit 269, I don’t even think about Mark who was found in a cloud of smoke and cocaine when he crashed his Volvo into the median under the guise of rain, speeding down the wrong side of the highway into oncoming traffic after getting caught with a 13-year-old girl in his arms, the same one whose pictures he had on his phone.

IT WOULD BE SO EASY TO—grab the wheel! With my own hands. Just not the part of my hands that come from my mother, which jitter with anxiety, hover over the gear shift, hesitate to indicate, never make a decisive move, hands that want to pull over, can we pull over? And did you know it’s actually a 55 on this stretch, so I don’t know why everyone always goes 75, I shouldn’t have to go 75, I know it’s dangerous to go this slow but we are supposed to be going this slow!

At Exit 270 I don’t think about what she’s thinking about: that these bridge piers are all a reconstruction. That the cement and steel holding up this very overpass already burned down once, already burned down with the body of her first love, who crashed his car into the columns the night after he proposed to her, sleep-deprived after a nightshift. The car caught fire the column caught fire he got caught inside if you drive off into the ditch you may not make it all the way and instead you may catch fire and wouldn’t that be a blast? Wouldn’t that be a blaze?

No, no. On the interstate I redirect my thoughts and think about mountains and trees and not how I’m running out of breath, 271, how I’m rolling down the windows, 272, how my fingers are tingling and I’m choking, 273, I’m choking even though there’s nothing in the air, 274, I’m turning on the AC and it smells like vinegar, 275, I’m tapping the brakes and they puff smoke like oil, 276, I’m looking for more things to taste and touch and smell and feel and see so that I won’t think about the mangled van and the DUI and the suspended license and the stolen firearm chucked out the window and the teenager who jumped from the overpass and the black ice, returning winter after winter in its same fatal patches, and the semi-truck that rolled so far it swept cars and bodies beneath itself, so that I can’t think about DO IT YOU WON’T!

Emily Russell is a scholar and writer whose recent work has been supported by the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. She was a 2026 Lambda Literary Playwriting Fellow and her plays have been developed or produced in New York, California, and Michigan. Her nonfiction appears in Scalawag and The Bold Italic, among others. Emily has a Ph.D. from Stanford University.