Observation Revision

Observation for Revision

Driving through the rain on a crisp March evening, the red and green lights dance on the black highway pavement. The road inhales, sighs and shift its weight. NPR is hosting another fund drive in the background between classical pieces. Despite the drizzle, I roll down the window and change the station, counting on the wind and sound to wake me. Soft piano floats into my drifting consciousness, and I recognize the melody- her song. Suddenly my mouth dries, breath catches. I choke for air. The empty seat to the right mirrors my empty lifeless soul. My mother's absence occupies the passenger seat in place of her, a kind of morbid proxy.

I inhale deeply; exhale slowly, light a cigarette between bursts of wind. A red neon sign approaches. “Prohibited,” the sign warns as I zip past. The small tires hum one long hypnotizing note to the discordant rhythm of the crunching rain, the tempo quickening. Forcefully, the angry wind kicked the rain into my face from the open window. The unsettling feeling of the missing passenger lingered guiltily, and the approaching neon sign pointed an accusing arrow toward my ring finger. A sudden burst of wind sweeps the car right. A purple bolt flashes downward, lingers, vanishes. I slow, stammering, toward the menacing sign. “Prohibited,” another sign insists, without elaborating.

Apprehensive, I pull to the shoulder. Postponing the prohibited, I compose resting my forehead on the steering wheel. Inhale, sigh. Inhale; long exhale. The car smells like stale tobacco, coffee and wet socks. The highway snakes within the mile, but I could always take the belt route. I entered the road too late, off-course before the engine started.

Accelerating again, I edge toward “Prohibited”. The rain relaxes somewhat, contemplating. A siren sounds in the distance, and I notice blue and red lights pulsing some distance in the rearview mirror, closing the distance. I wonder what travesty he races toward, what disaster remains ahead. The comfort of the approaching officer encourages me, the first headlights since entering the highway. I brave the sign.

The radio sounds deliberate, long, minor notes. Beneath the melody, I half hear half feel her call, beckoning me home. With all my forlorn heart, I wish I could follow. There’s not a PT cruiser made anywhere that can drive that highway. I hear the police sirens fade as the officer hurries forward, the light fading into the heavy air.

The rain slows, and I realize I can make up some lost time. I didn’t actually start with a destination, just a need for departure. My apartment, always so tense with accusation, testifies to dry resentments. The wisp of dream entreating a void love stole months away from home. Every seething moment beside my husband, I unwittingly sacrificed precious moments beside her. He detests the silence, my void lifeless eyes that glaze past and through him, resents the countless hours spent alone while I cry, work, drink away my disgrace. Meanwhile, I resent his presence altogether, with so many perfect rooms, books, states elsewhere. I loathe the taste of his space in mine, coating the back of my throat. He’d begun to speak, in his strained “let me monologue at you” voice. Even before he finished his chiding, I’d slammed the door, storming into the rainy night.

The author of the phrase “Misery loves company,” failed. Misery wants solitude, to better hear the silence. Misery loves to brood collapsing into the span of a moment and chew it like gum that lost its flavor. I wasn’t overdue; wasn’t expected. I’ve been uncharacteristically punctual since March, another March in a time when punctuality could’ve changed my mother’s outcome. Doctors say she died of cancer, breast cancer. Someone could argue she died of corrupt medical insurance and a flawed government. Actually she died of failure, my failure to arrive in time to act. She died of my marriage, my distance, my inability to be close enough to observe and decide. I have been frantically punctual since the other March, only too late.

I light another cigarette. How many has this been? The ashtray holds five butts and I’ve been on the highway an hour and a half. Metallica plays something fast I’ve heard before, but its name escapes me. The air hung tentatively. I maneuver the last few sets of curves, noticing city lights about some few minutes ahead, shining blurrily though some fog lingering in the air. The smell of the still rain hangs in the air, crisp and fresh like the earth cried alongside me. My heavy eyes droop as I pull off the road and onto some gravel and snap quickly open. I pull aside and out of sight. I might return to my apartment; I don’t want to think about it now. Purple lightening still flashes in the distance. My mind lingers on the highway as I recline the seat and my eyes roll back, into dreamspace, into any other wishful March when the missing passenger lived.