The Driver's Sleep
The tread of your shoe catches on the gas pedal for a bubble-pop moment. The pedal descends and the car gives a buck of a start and kicks into gear. You’re moving. Eyelids glide over moist eyeballs, lips part slightly to facilitate the work of your pumping lungs. The cracked window lets a playful breeze nip at the hairs on your arm.
Like never before, you are alive.
The radio plays a song you know, but you don’t know why or from where. The words to the chorus have been lurking somewhere in your unthinking mind. You sing until you reach a red light and pause alongside another driver with his window down. No need to make an ass of yourself.
On the pavement, a girl in spandex runs in place, waiting for the traffic to wane so she can jaywalk. Below her daring sport’s bra, her stomach muscles tighten as she skillfully avoids any driver’s glance.
A man walks haltingly with an enthusiastic Pug; a roly-poly and well-loved dog that runs and stops to explore the olfactory universe. You can feel the burn of the nylon leash as it rubs the nook between the owner’s thumb and pointer.
In your lap sits the haunting Blackberry that compels you to check its status even when it has given no attention-calling cry. No vibrations, no rings, no tones or icons indicating communication. It teases you into thinking you are never alone. Now it reminds you that you most certainly are.
The man exiting the apartment complex up ahead looks beautiful beneath his Dodger’s cap. A five o’clock shadow, toned arms bursting out of his short sleeves. He doesn’t wear his pants too low or too loose. They hug his middle and fall as flattering drapery down his legs. You can tell he took time to get dressed this morning. You respect that. You find yourself wondering, pointlessly, if this wonderful specimen has a girlfriend. So what if he doesn’t?
By the time the thought has come, he has gone. You’ve gassed yourself down the block, away from a chance encounter that never had a chance.
You tune out the commercials on the radio, the constant elevator music of your driving existence. You don’t hear anything about the new Lexus or an Orange Savings Account. Now you have folded into yourself where your thoughts can talk over the chatter. You don’t notice the natural twist of the ankle that takes your foot from the gas to the brake when a stop sign appears up ahead.
The air smells faintly of manure and you wonder if you stepped in something. Deep down, you’re pretty sure you haven’t and you don’t care enough to check. Not now. Wait till you get home, when it matters.
In this vehicular limbo, nothing matters. All the contortions of the torso and ankle and neck come naturally; each flick of your irises from left to right is unstoppable. This is a time of floating.
And yet -
Something about the world is very distinct: The curve of the wheel beneath your palms; the bobbling bumps in the road. Your lumbar pouts from lack of support and as you shift in your seat, your car swerves a little to the right. Everything has the big, black outline of a cartoon. It’s not just you moving automatically. It’s everything.
You speed through the wafting mist of moment and feel the dampness on your skin. Where are you going? You ask yourself, earnestly. What is your true destination?
There is something lonely and connected in the wide arc of a left turn. You watch your hands do their job and feel so alone and a part of everything.
An unexpected pedestrian startles you from this self-hypnosis. You force your leg down with glass-crushing might, unnecessarily, causing your body to lurch forward.
For an instant you have returned, living in the self-focused universe; a world of the partially blinded.
As you slip back into the driver’s sleep, you open yourself to a life your consciousness has learned to ignore.
And the desperate cries of the love song on the radio jab you with pointed lyrics and sharp, pretty voices. You’d cry if you had reason to, in some way you wish you did. To make sense of it all is the only thing that will allow you to pull into your garage with any sense of comfort.
But you pull in with a discombobulating air. The sound of the engine ricochets off the walls, the silence deep when you turn it off. You have to restart the cacophony to roll up the window. Silence again.
The walk to your door is the shedding of forced disintegration. You gather each piece of yourself and jam it, with the key, into the lock.
Back to life, you tell yourself.
But you no longer feel quite so alive.