Experiment
Late night. Jazz. Good jazz, the kind with the sweet sounds of a muted trumpet playing in front of a upright piano. The sounds of the setting. Conditioned air falls across my face, up my nose, into my insides, become one with my being. Wipers flick rain off the windshield lazily, the fleeting marriage of drop and glass destroyed by the steady rhythm of the blade, cutting through the darkness. The road winds around the bend. It’s late: too late for such a trip like this. Eyes droop, close, open! Re-focus. Jazz louder, more air blasting into my face. What a difference a day makes.
The road. A sea of oily black. Wet with condensation, perspiration, animation, but not enough to remove the slick mess of a hundred, a thousand, a million million cars before me. My ship rolls with the hills, pitches in time to the steady beat of Thelonious Monk, of John Coltrane. We move to the measured score, my ship and I, marching forth while men in smoky rooms and jazz bars play their songs and women with husky voices sing sadly of lovers past.
Destination. The 24-hour-supermarket, a warehouse of bright light and empty aisles. Anchor the ship, check for muggers, realize that it’s too late for even muggers to be out. Step out. Lock. Purposeful walk. Man with kitty litter leaves store, too embarrassed to look at me. Who buys kitty litter at 1 AM?
Aisle 1. Aisle 2. 3. 4. A-ha! Aisle 5. Remind self that in future, oil is stored in Aisle 5. What kind? Unclear. Vegetable. Canola. Olive. Olive? No. Not olive. And then there were two. Vegetable. Canola. Canola. Vegetable. Flip a coin. Pick a number. If a train leaves Vegetable at 45 miles per hour, and a train leaves Canola….. What is the difference between oil anyways? Blue label. Green label. Does oil go bad? Oil is oil. Vegetable cheaper. Think about purpose of said oil. Two bottles of vegetable.
Checkout. Scan. Beep. Scan. Beep. Five even. Half a sawbuck. A Lincoln. The bill crisp. Immaculate. As I hand over the money, I am too embarrased to look at the cahsier. Who buys vegetable oil at 1:05 AM?
Purposeful walk. Life now rewinding. Be kind, please rewind. Every action has an equal and opposite. Unlock. Step in. Raise the anchor, Mister Coltrane! We lurch forward, picking up steam on our return voyage, back from the briny depths from which we came. We are alone on the dark roads in the vast nothingness of Suburbia. As the night claims us, my ship and I, we embrace Her, engirth Her, and we are Hers.