Winter Roads and Interstellar Space
The door wooshed open, a relief from the cold. After a long voyage, even a stop at the provisional seemed welcome.
A screeching warble floated down the aisles. Maybe it was Earth music. Maybe it wasn’t. Everything sounded the same after a while. And the clientele…what IS that guy wearing?
Something snapped.
“Nice jammies, dude.”
The young alien didn’t take it well.
He turned with a snarl, and whipped out his vaporizer.
In that split second, dying cranky seemed noble, a way to honor the fighting spirit of earth in general, and America in particular. Somebody’s got to push back. Common intergalactic decency says don’t wear PJ’s to the store.
Lying isn’t always words. Some things are worse than death.
With one last gurgle, the traveler managed a final jab.
“You forgot to tie your slippers.”
I’ve been listening to a nifty collection of lost Terry Pratchett short stories called A Stroke of the Pen.
And driving at night.
I always end up driving at night.
Maybe it was the frigid evening. Or the astronomy pal I visited to work on some new gear. Or the way the cedars and sleeping oaks pressed in as my headlights tried to strive through the freezing blackness of the near remote country. The road lurched to the left, then right. I squinted into the void.
If a walk on a misty January day is like wandering through the Earth’s dream, a cold night is an expedition into the subconscious of the planet. It’s the basement under the dungeon, and might as well be outer space. The Past and Future exist at once, condensed into an eternal Present, lit only by the radio.
Red House Road isn’t that far away, but a trip along it after dark feels like a galactic voyage. Or what I’d like it to feel like.
Oh sure, if we ever figure out wormholes and warp speed and all that jazz of physics when Miles Davis and Niels Bohr collaborate in some alternate dimension, I imagine it’ll be cold and white and sterile and boring.
(Or not.)
But I doubt it would be meditative.
Here, on a thirty minute jaunt through the uncertainty of a deep winter’s night, it feels like I’m making the turn from Rigel to Earth.
The 80’s tunes don’t quite cut it in the isolation, so off they go. Pools of light flash by the wayside, cold outside, strangers warm and unseen somewhere in.
Ah, there, up on the mountain: the red beacon, almost home.
A sweeping and a slowing, coming in for a landing at another parking lot.
And then a hideous wailing love song in the grocery store.
It’s good to be home.
Maybe there will be more quasi-science fiction earth grumpling vignettes.
Stay tuned, and stay warm.
Clear skies,
Josh
