In the Distance, Oblivious

It’s a hot and sticky morning as I steer somebody else’s ‘66 Malibu though the July-dry fields of Nelson County. The Tye River’s down to a trickle, neither of us in any hurry to get anywhere important.

Under a one-lane bridge, Alice dances by herself in a dress made of dragonfly wings. Sunlight catches, crackles and shimmers off both her and the ankle-deep water. If her movements were any slower, they’d be imperceptible to the human eye.

Lost in the wrong memory, I’m still wearing last winter’s blinders. Radiohead moans through this ancient and tinny dashboard speaker. “Just because you feel it doesn’t mean it’s there.” My own cavalcade of loneliness crosses over her bridge, unaware of Alice and her anonymous coruscation.

I’ve been awake for a while when I feel your your body roll toward me. First light makes your bedroom feel like a stranger, curtains and walls and furniture stumbling around, like people you barely know in an unfamiliar bar. I turn my head and see you looking at me with a tender smile. The way you touch me doesn’t seem real.

On a rarely visited shelf in a rarely visited library, Alice finds a dusty book. It’s been here for years - decades maybe. On closer look, she finds the pages poorly cut, never opened.

She pulls open page 1 and looks at the words printed there. She’s the first person to open this particular book, yes, but it’s more than that. Somehow she knows that the author meant these words only for her.

Ghost dogs are barking at ghost cars driving down ghost roads.

I am not what you expected.

“We may as well be made of stone”

In her dream Alice is sitting at a lunch counter in Birmingham, Alabama eating lemon cream pie.

“We can’t be flown”

Jeff Tweedy is sitting next to her, talking.

“One wing will never fly”

He doesn’t sing. The only musical sounds are coming from the pie.

“Neither yours nor mine”

Jeff Tweedy has lemon stuff in his stubbly beard.

“I fear we can only wave goodbye”

When Alice wakes up there are crumbs in her bed.