I can get stuck. Which in light of how I should be grateful lately is embarrassing. Days I've been stuck in this place I didn't want to be. Days that stretched out just like the impersonal side of this city, seemingly without a beginning or an end, without rest, busy but detached, faceless, concrete grey, and suffering from the sudden onset of afternoon waterworks. Days I have had the same blank stare as I traced and retraced my worn path to work and home again creeping slowly in the gridlock.
HONK.
Surely I am not drifting out of my lane or that distracted. What...
HONK.
I look in my rearview. Nothing. I look to my right.
There he is waving. He smiles. He blows me a kiss.
I laugh.
He drives on.
I drive on.
We all drive on.
Slowly just like before. But.
The back of his car is pearly green as it is swallowed up by the other glowing red brake lights. I look in the rearview mirror again, but this time see my dark brown hair catching the sun and notice my hazel eyes looking back. It's me. I wink in recognition. Outside the ceiling is cornflower blue and puffy white cotton clouds have been glued across its great expanse by a child's hand. I see four and twenty black birds escaped from a storybook swirling against the pale background and then they land neatly, one by one, on a wire. To my left I see the golden yellow headlight on a dirty, dark red train engine and I hear its horn blast and even feel the rumble and clickity-clack as it glides past parallel. I see again. I feel again. In technicolor.
Maybe His name is Clarence and somewhere a bell is ringing still. Merry Christmas, Man. Wherever you are. Thanks.
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2 comments:
O pretty!! I'm clapping in my mind. You paint so clearly, Maleah, all your moods and thoughts and shifts, and your colors are so bright and quick, like movies. I love reading your words.
~Dawn
Hello, lovely, bright Dawn. Now that I am jarred awake by the HONKing I think I'll try and appear more often. How I drag myself back and forth and forget to blink for a spell is so sleep-walky of me. Without the dream. But today is so promising. Lunch out with others, a trip to the pool, a play about pirates this evening with my little ducklings in tow. Oh, and we must go buy a new fish for the tank. One that eats algae for dinner. I hear some little birdie chirp-chirping right outside my window and a brilliant male cardinal hops into view and the green of everything is trying to creep inside like it is all one big vine seeking shelter from the shortening days. I notice that I did not notice a brown carpet has begun to form under the crepe myrtles as they undress, immodest and sexy in their beautiful peeling bark limbs. It's quite a day for being awake... and dreaming anyway.
* x
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