The lights glimmer in the distance, twinklings of civilization on the edge of the city. They're greenish in the fog of memories, while the interstate signs sternly fly by overhead with a cold reality of physics contrasting the What If thoughts, induced by the hum of the wheels and the empty passenger seat so quiet next to me.
The old man danced with his wife earlier to Nat King Cole. Three gigs deep and on the road all day, I hyped "Unforgettable", like it needed it, dropped the needle, and almost dropped my mic when I saw him move the oxygen tube out of the way so he could get a picture with her as they danced. "Oh wow, they've been married like fifty years" someone said. I think it was a staff member of the assisted living facility. Even my cynical heart was jolted out of it's track of snark. The mask slipped, and there was a vacuum where there should have been a face, pulling me into vastness of concrete and steel, a night vast lit by sodium vapor orange and a world so big. There's the terror of never finding home, and the awe of the void.
It's Valentine's Day, and I've been on the mic in more ways than one. I'm telling my audiences what they're listening to, and myself what I'm doing. I'm the pilot, the DJ, a cool guy with a trendy T shirt, panicked about the numbers, and ignoring the real questions. I'm a dust mote with a Mohawk, floating through the blackness. I never realized how much that being cynical, lazy with some philosophical thoughts, and fond of the simple answers was like building a little space ship that I could use to build a tiny world to claim to understand.
I cannot stop listening to the Poets of the Fall song Rewind. Dig this line:
If Life itself has a meaning, is it anything more than what we choose to call it. Sweet words make appealing, but they only serve to mask the smell of what you buried.
Try that on for size next time you're dreaming on the Interstate. Who needs audiobooks?
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