Massachusetts

The headlights kept cutting out and flickering from time to time. The car was tired and beyond repair. It held five men but was more suited for only a couple of large dogs. The Mass Pike in the middle of the night was desolate, eerie at times. It felt like the apocalypse had begun, and we were not aware yet. The driver and I were the only brain-fried humans awake with a three hour stretch ahead of us. The headlights were becoming a problem, and the dashboard light was taking breaks now. Probably a circuit issue, but the owner just didn’t care about the car. Driving at night without headlights would normally be dangerous, and not recommended by any means. This was before cell phones were in everyone’s hands, and we printed out maps from the dial-up internet. On this night, far out galaxies sent guidance in the form of a meteor shower. Cloudless skies made the nighttime canvas for perfect medium for streaks of white to tear wounds into another world like a bear ripping skin on an unsuspecting hiker. I can see the movie poster now. For a few hours out of the forty years I’ve been on the planet, wonder washed over me as my eyes were glued to the sky and not the road ahead of us. We debated whether to wake up the others, but decided it was just going to be their loss. We departed Providence, Rhode Island headed to a state college in New York and in Massachusetts, we found a moment of clarity and peace.