Don’t Look Back
When I hit 85 the delusions had clutched my mind.
I left my snow globe town in a fuss after weeks of insanity. Infrastructures were crumbling, ice sheets were melting — things were getting a bit shaky.
CLICK
Seat belt. Mirrors. Music.
There must be some kind of way out of here…
That’s appropriate. One last check of my rear-view mirror and I’m gone.
I flicked the mirror approximately 20 degrees to the right.
Suddenly, a bitter taste overtook my mouth and a sharp cold kicked me in the head. I peered through the looking glass. A rush of blood filled my brain when — JESUS CHRIST!
A shadowy, almost transparent, almost glistening version of myself was rummaging through my backpack and throwing all of my clothes around the car, clearly looking for something of value. He glanced out the window, like someone was watching him, but continued to thrash around the back seat, searching, tossing and then searching some more.
I heaved my torso toward the back of the car…nothing. Backpack zipped, secure, just how I left it two minutes and thirty-one seconds ago.
Again, I looked through the mirror. There he was — or rather, there I was — tossing, searching, more tossing this time. Then, he looked up, like he had been caught red-handed. Pivoting his head toward me like he was annoyed at me watching him, he smiled, gave a single wink of his right eye, and continued the search of my bag.
I was losing it. An apparition, a glimpse into the future, what the hell was that?!?
Without warning, a deafening, hysterical laughter clotted my right ear drum. I turned my head slowly, eyes closed, heart booming, while the cackling intensified. The laughter ran like helter-skelter, up and down, left and right through my skull, in and out of my already troubled head. I was able to open my eyes for an instant to see what was making this horrible siren-like sound.
And there I was again — a shadowy, almost transparent, almost glistening version of myself — only this time, I seemed to be lost in hysteria, bouncing off the car window and the ceiling, pounding on my knees, laughing more than breathing.
I racked my mind for possible side effects of this new allergy medication I was taking. Nothing along the lines of savage illusions, vivid manifestations or glimpses into past/future lives came up.
I looked forward toward my house, closed my eyes, counted to five, breathed deep and long.
I looked right, looked left, looked behind me, in front again — nothing.
“No reason to get excited,” the thief he kindly spoke, “There are many here among us, who feel that life is but a joke”…
I must be losing it now.
The tires hovered above the graveled ground for three seconds while kicking the car in reverse.
I drove like a madman through that dreadful town. In and out of moving reds and blues, over the dotted yellows, under the stretched grays and past the fluorescent green tempests. Just make it to the highway, you crazy fool.
The universal cobalt freeway sign shown like a beacon as I swerved into the left turn lane –
But you and I we’ve been through that, and this is not our fate, so let us not talk falsely now, the hour’s getting late…
Green! C’mon green! This savagery is taking control!
– YES!!
The light changed as my head almost smacked the roof with elation.
15…25…45…this car can really get goin’ when it wants to!
55…65…75…don’t stop now!
Sailing through blurry reds and blues, I couldn’t stop the speed, it was uncontrollable, it was inexplicable, it was exhilarating, it was frightening — it was out of my control.
When I hit 85 the delusions had clutched my mind.
The highway gives off a throbbing pulse as you sink deeper into “freeway vision” — completely disconnecting from any and all realms of the physical world and you focus so completely, so intensely on the road in front of you that you begin to even disconnect from that, when all you have left to deal with is your own mind, and your own thoughts, and your own dealings and all the worries and hurries of yourself and others — and you think you’re sleeping but you’re driving and you’re completely focused but completely disengaged from the truck you’re about to side-swipe — JESUS CHRIST!
In a panicky jolt, I grasped the steering wheel tight and flung my arms to the port side. The left tires sunk deeper and deeper into the pavement as the right side almost lifted from the ground in a frantic, last-minute skew from the monstrous trucker’s 10-foot trailer full of G-d knows what.
All along the watchtower, princes kept the view…
Focus, you bastard — focus, or get pummeled on this death trap of a highway.
A rubik’s cube of consciousness, sleep, waking, freeway vision, lucid dreams — G-d knows what — filled the next two hours of driving.
Tampa – Next Exit
What was this? Some warning, some divine intervention, or maybe just some trip on allergy medication.
While pulling off the freeway onto the exit ramp, the car awkwardly slowed down like the first steps one takes off a moving sidewalk. I came to a stop, and looked ahead to a homeless man asking for money on the median. With a feverish stare, he motioned the white sign he was holding. Instead of the usual “Need money for food” or “Veteran, G-d Bless” sign, he fashioned a different phrase of black-sharpied words that read – “Don’t Look Back”
Outside in the cold distance, a wild cat did growl, two riders were approachin’, and the wind began to howl…
(This story is neither true nor untrue, real or dream, rather somewhere in between. Either way, I think I need to take a break from Dylan for a while.)
For stress induced psychosis rendering a split personality and a sense of impending doom — and for the ride home — listen to Bob Dylan’s “John Wesley Harding”
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