This is just a little something to make you think. Feel free to share your impressions.
Gloaming
The world is covered by a low-hanging fog as twilight
approaches. This creates a weird silvery light, on my evening commute. I am
taking a winding shortcut through the hills on my way home. I have driven this
road hundreds if not thousands of times.
Rounding one of the winding curves, music playing, I am
transported somewhere else. The world becomes a translucent void. My radio
loses reception, changing to a static noise that hurts the ears. I fumble, my
hand shaking, as I reach over to turn down the volume.
The road straightens out. What just happened? My hands grip the steering wheel a bit tighter,
the familiar faux leather under my fingers is a strange comfort. The road is oddly
frightening in its perfect straightness. This isn't a part of the plan.
The weird light has grown brighter in this strange place.
Nothing is as it seems. Everything is whitewashed in translucent light. Color
has been sucked from this world. The trees, at their greenest in a wet winter,
are a sickly shade of ash.
The car is getting warm, but I am fearful of opening my
window. Will the weird light suck my color out as well? My stomach revolts. Breathe in slow and deep. I can feel the
prickly heat sliding over my skin.
I want to stop, pull over and wait, but something compels me
to keep driving. I know, without knowing how or why, that if I stop, I'll never
get back to where I was. Do I leave the world I know, for something entirely
different, or do I keep driving and return to the road I was on?
2 comments:
Ah Crystal, you have vividly captured the way I feel when my path has taken an unexpected twist (which it so often does) and I’m in that uncomfortable unknown. The way it feels so surreal, my mind baulking with a similar “This isn’t a part of the plan” and the desire to stop and turn around competing against the even stronger something that “compels me to keep driving”. Beautifully written, Crystal.
Thank you, I am so glad you could relate. I was hopeful someone would understand. :)
Post a Comment