Free Collision by Stefne Miller

addict or anything. I got pulled over, arrested for a DUI. It kind of set me straight.”
    “And when was this?”
    “A few months ago.”
    “Are you going to prison?”
    “No. Community service. Parole. That kind of thing.”
    “You don’t have to tell anything more. It isn’t my business, but I’m glad something set you straight. Thank you for sharing.”
    “Sure.”
    I reached into the backpack and pulled out a bag of Sour Brite Crawlers.
    “What are those?” Her voice was full of curiosity, and she easily changed the subject.
    “A sweet-and-sour candy that you buy at movie theaters. They’re my snack obsession, and when nobody’s watching my diet, I always have a bag on hand.”
    “You just sounded like a female.”
    “I know, but they’re good.”
    Her nose crinkled into a grimace.
    “Don’t knock it ’til you try it,” I said, holding the bag out to her.
    She grabbed one and held it between her thumb and pointer finger like it was a real worm and she was about to bait a hook with it.
    She looked completely disgusted, so I urged her on. “Go ahead.”
    “Is that sugar on the outside?”
    “I think so, but I’ve never dissected the thing. Just put it in your mouth already.”
    She looked closely at it, licked some of the white dusting off one end, and then stuck it in her mouth. Her eyes immediately enlarged, and her eyebrows arched high in delight.
    “Told you.”
    I held out the bag, and she reached in and pulled out a handful and laid them on the blanket in front of her.
    “What’s the weirdest thing you’ve seen when you were out in the different villages?”
    “More about Africa, huh? You aren’t tired of hearing me babble on?”
    “Not even close. Come on. Spit it out.”
    “The weirdest? Hmm?” She divided the crawlers into piles according to color as she thought of a response. “It’s hard to say. What Americans would find as weird or scary might be commonplace over there.”
    “Like what?”
    “Well,” she said with a shrug and then sat up and crossed her legs. “There are a lot of different religions represented in Africa, not to mention all the villages that worship different gods or spirits. There’s a lot of witchcraft, a lot of voodoo-type occult. Most of the IDP camps have several medicine doctors.”
    “Witchdoctors?”
    “Yes. Although there is a law against the practice of witchcraft, it’s still performed often.”
    “There’s an actual law against it?”
    “Oh yes.”
    “Have you met a witchdoctor?”
    “Several, but just the ones in the camps. I’m not permitted to go on the trips that take you out into the farther villages. That’s where things can begin to get more odd and dangerous, sadistic, evil. Child sacrifice and so on.”
    “That stuff really happens?”
    “All the time. My parents came back telling me about one village they went to where if the oldest male child dies, they bury the youngest alive, in honor of their death.”
    My body shivered in revulsion.
    “They literally dig a hole and then begin filling it up with the baby or child screaming in terror. And all of it is to appease some spirit that they worship. They believe that their older child died because evil fell on the family and that only sacrificing another child will cause the evil to go away.
    “Then there are witchdoctors who tell parents that they have a curse on them and in order to reverse the curse, they must sacrifice one of their children and bring him back the body. They do, and then he turns around and sells the body to a businessman who believes that if they bury that body under a business or home, it will bring it luck.”
    I had nothing even remotely intelligent to say in response. I was horrified, shocked, and disgusted. All I could do was sit with my mouth hanging open and still watering from the sour candy I’d just swallowed.
    She, on the other hand, didn’t seem fazed and kept right on talking. Nothing new there.
    “Then, of course, you have the babies