It was as if the night sky was in on the whole dirty secret.
There I was, white knuckling the steering wheel, eyes reduced to slits and my face pressed so close to the windshield that the breath from my nostrils began to fog up the glass. I was driving through the worst rainstorm of my life and fuck if I had any sort of co-pilot to help me out. The car was old, the insulation, non-existent, and the radio was stuck on an AM station playing a ranchera music from Sinaloa. I kept double and triple checking the front and back windows, making sure they were rolled up all the way. Nevertheless, I kept feeling a cold, moist draft flowing into the cab of the truck from some unidentifiable opening.
I was driving on the side streets, avoiding the freeway like always. The raindrops were hot and full bodied. I had my windshield wipers working at full speed, yet I couldn't see more than a foot in front of me. Living in drought ridden California means you can effectively forget that rainstorms exist, let alone the real kind of rain like they have in South Texas. I couldn’t see the sky through my windshield, nor my rear or side view mirrors, but I knew it was laughing at me. The circumstances of my situation and the heavy, relentless tempest that was descending on the seaside town of Corpus was too coincidental. Perhaps I should have been paying more attention to the road, or what I could see of it anyways, but my consciousness left my body and turned upwards. Out of my body and out of my mind, quite literally, I pictured the night sky as this omnipresent peeping Tom who I cannot seem to escape. My celestial voyeur mostly treats me right. It’s a kind of live and let live relationship. But sometimes my life gets too ordinary, too boring and routine, and like a scientist playing tricks on their lab mice, my night sky unleashes a torrent of extreme changes. It was exactly like those scenes from The Hunger Games, when the money-grubbing, power hungry "architects" decide to fuck with the tributes. From a climate controlled room in the games arena, the architects send fireballs, killer bees, tsunamis, you name it, towards the disheveled, starving tributes. It’s a simple numbers game. Watching people survive is boring and this whole charade is intended to increase viewership of the televised deathtrap. I slap my face hard with the palm of my right hand, forcing my mind back into my body. The radio crackles in and out of service and I can only hear the faint melody of an accordion playing from some far off place.
I keep driving through the abandoned streets of Corpus, trying my best to avoid the heaps of soggy trash that had rolled off the sidewalks and into the street. I probably wouldn't have even seen this industrial roadkill if it weren't for the flashes of lightning. Just for a moment, a blinding crimson light would swallow the town whole. The sudden illumination of my surroundings did nothing if not remind me of my solitude, my utter lack of direction, material and otherwise. I should pull over, I thought. I could hit someone, I tell myself. No, dude, seriously, I could crash any second and kill myself. For some reason, these ruminations only made me want to keep driving. What was it about the night that makes me feel invincible? I feel the night sky laughing at my hubris and the rain beats on.
My car pauses at what I assume is a stop sign, and crack of thunder and lightning happen almost simultaneously. The light from the electrical current lasts just long enough for me to see the unmistakable neon flicker of a motel sign in the distance. “I made it cock sucker,” I think, as I let the car hydroplane into the intersection. If another vehicle was heading towards me, I wouldn’t know it. And fuck it if I gave a damn.
There I was, white knuckling the steering wheel, eyes reduced to slits and my face pressed so close to the windshield that the breath from my nostrils began to fog up the glass. I was driving through the worst rainstorm of my life and fuck if I had any sort of co-pilot to help me out. The car was old, the insulation, non-existent, and the radio was stuck on an AM station playing a ranchera music from Sinaloa. I kept double and triple checking the front and back windows, making sure they were rolled up all the way. Nevertheless, I kept feeling a cold, moist draft flowing into the cab of the truck from some unidentifiable opening.
I was driving on the side streets, avoiding the freeway like always. The raindrops were hot and full bodied. I had my windshield wipers working at full speed, yet I couldn't see more than a foot in front of me. Living in drought ridden California means you can effectively forget that rainstorms exist, let alone the real kind of rain like they have in South Texas. I couldn’t see the sky through my windshield, nor my rear or side view mirrors, but I knew it was laughing at me. The circumstances of my situation and the heavy, relentless tempest that was descending on the seaside town of Corpus was too coincidental. Perhaps I should have been paying more attention to the road, or what I could see of it anyways, but my consciousness left my body and turned upwards. Out of my body and out of my mind, quite literally, I pictured the night sky as this omnipresent peeping Tom who I cannot seem to escape. My celestial voyeur mostly treats me right. It’s a kind of live and let live relationship. But sometimes my life gets too ordinary, too boring and routine, and like a scientist playing tricks on their lab mice, my night sky unleashes a torrent of extreme changes. It was exactly like those scenes from The Hunger Games, when the money-grubbing, power hungry "architects" decide to fuck with the tributes. From a climate controlled room in the games arena, the architects send fireballs, killer bees, tsunamis, you name it, towards the disheveled, starving tributes. It’s a simple numbers game. Watching people survive is boring and this whole charade is intended to increase viewership of the televised deathtrap. I slap my face hard with the palm of my right hand, forcing my mind back into my body. The radio crackles in and out of service and I can only hear the faint melody of an accordion playing from some far off place.
I keep driving through the abandoned streets of Corpus, trying my best to avoid the heaps of soggy trash that had rolled off the sidewalks and into the street. I probably wouldn't have even seen this industrial roadkill if it weren't for the flashes of lightning. Just for a moment, a blinding crimson light would swallow the town whole. The sudden illumination of my surroundings did nothing if not remind me of my solitude, my utter lack of direction, material and otherwise. I should pull over, I thought. I could hit someone, I tell myself. No, dude, seriously, I could crash any second and kill myself. For some reason, these ruminations only made me want to keep driving. What was it about the night that makes me feel invincible? I feel the night sky laughing at my hubris and the rain beats on.
My car pauses at what I assume is a stop sign, and crack of thunder and lightning happen almost simultaneously. The light from the electrical current lasts just long enough for me to see the unmistakable neon flicker of a motel sign in the distance. “I made it cock sucker,” I think, as I let the car hydroplane into the intersection. If another vehicle was heading towards me, I wouldn’t know it. And fuck it if I gave a damn.