You Decide Where Story Ends, Fiction Begins

This is important - when I say "Main Street" it means a two-lane small town winding path that turns into suburbia closer to the capitol. The following takes place in the small town section.

I watched a cop car pass me by before I ran onto Main Street. I was running along it, and a car ahead pulled over, hazards flashing, and the cop had pulled a U-Turn to stop beside it.

A car pulled over, hazards flashing, and the cop had pulled a U-turn and stopped behind it. I would have to pass them by, and I didn't want to run in the middle of the road, podunk as Main Street may be -- but I was also aware of how my emergence from behind the SUV might closer resemble a cockroach emerging from its bedroom post metamorphosis than anything else.

I turned all Kafka on the world, and became a shade among the SUV's shadows. When I reached its back bumper Driver!Cop had exited, while Shotgun!Cop hung out. Driver!Cop, a short man with close-cropped blond hair and glasses, visibly startled by my appearance, rested a hand on his weapon.

I tore out my iPod's earpieces. "Yes, do it! Draw your weapon on me! It's the last piece I need to take down the corrupt enterprise that is this legal system. I can see the headlines now: 'Bow Cop Arraigned on Charges of Criminal Threatening of Unarmed Passerby.' Do it! Do it, you won't, do it!"

That was when Shotgun!Cop exited the vehicle.

A couple hours later, when I had become intimately aware with what I can only assume was the small town equivalent of a drunk tank, my parents came to pick me up. Miraculously, the iPod Shuffle of DOOM™, which normally only has about 45 minutes of battery life, was still paused on The Killers (A Crippling Blow). I had one earpiece in when I said to the parents - I think the cops were still in earshot - "It was worth it."