Sound of Thunder

Six hours, non-stop office to D.C., gloaming turning swiftly black in these longest nights of the year, fog on the heights where the menacing semis loom and fade; inclines indicated by the rental’s groan into high gear. 

Lonely, tired, missing the kids.  Too much caffeine, too much empty time in a lifestyle otherwise bereft of a free moment.  Peopling the passenger seat with an array of fantasy figures, real or imagined: what conversations could occur in this LED intimacy surrounded by blackness and fog; what unspoken connections, what lasting bonds?  Sans such companionship, the mind creates its own: spins stories out of dreams and ghosts and bits and pieces of reality.

The reception, nearing a city, suddenly clear and evocative: 

Workin’ on our night moves……
And oh the wonder
We felt the lightning
And we waited on the thunder 

’76, Seger sweeping to fame on Night Moves, crossed the teen trajectory of me and how many others on the road tonight: drivers grainy-eyed, line-faced, middle-aged behind a wheel:  in trucking and sales and management and the corner office.  How many tuned in to the fog, the dark, the memory?

We were just young and restless and bored
Livin’ by the sword
Tryin’ to lose the awkward teenage blues
Workin’ on our night moves
And it was summertime 

Soul's summertime: back seats, bra straps, fog on the windows: groping, seeking, panting energy, endless passion for this and all else.

I used her, she used me
But neither one cared 

Echoes of sixteen, when hear the song touched our inexperience.  At 46, instead nostalgia flowers: 

I woke last night to the sound of thunder
How far off I sat and wondered
Started hummin’ a song from 1962
Ain’t it funny how the night moves
When you just don’t seem to have as much to lose

The speed and the obscurity and the tune: 

Strange how the night moves
With autumn closing in