Time Is Measured By Cars, Distance By Phones, Graves Always With Flowers

An almost-decade-old blue car could be swapped quickly for the dream-car of college--- this ragged SUV. The SUV was gray but it should have been the green of the college dream. The blue car had certainly been through mileage--- the daily commute to offices, restaurants, bars, homes, vacations, and misadventures. The radiator had expired and there was no more air-conditioning. That couldn’t be fixed by adding more Freon. It had stains from sweat and drinks and tears. A dashboard kicked and pounded and punched by unhappiness. It had been to lonely and twisted escapes, these roads that should have not been taken, yet that’s the journey. For a time.

Sell it. Time for a change. Whatever will make you happy. And changing cars could end in heartbreak.

It was a long time ago. Not so long ago. Marvel at times how much life has changed yet some things remained— like wanting and having used cars; like wanting to take care of a prostitute named “Bubbles” and to save her; or a gray SUV, second-hand (how many hands have been on those wheels), there owned and unused.

It comes more nowadays, the need to say “I’m sorry”.

Unhappy. Was.

But someone did not deserve those things done.

Carl Jung said that sometimes people have to do something unforgivable to go on living. Look at life now, there’s the sun, there’s the sunshine, and say--- How apt.

What is unforgivable? The sun had left the solar system because it was imploding. It had to choose to forsake all the planets otherwise it would have been the supernova that could’ve destroyed life, was destroying it. The sun, simply, wanted to be happy.

Unforgivable? The sunshine that meant to be only for one sunflower but wanted to touch all sunflowers… Flowers that couldn’t resist but turn their faces and bodies to the sunshine--- their smiles. Sunshine burns, calls itself a habitual liar, a habitual fucker, with a conscience--- it is sad and feels horrible even as it burns.

The sun and the sunshine--- both self-confessed unforgivable--- to go on living.

At past 2 am, there was a call to a phone. Unanswered. Two messages after, asking Where are YOU and identifying itself. Again, a call from the same number. Rejected. A message asking Why. The phone snarled that it was asleep and the fucker has got to be drunk or dying to be bugging it at that time.

The message replied to the phone with Sorry and I am dead. Yes you are, the phone wanted to say. But there is chuckling in the phone’s head: You cruel, cruel, most cruel phone.

The phone replied: The dead don’t text, the fuck is wrong. It did not ask why the dead feels dead because it knew why. And there it was, like predictive settings, the message I lost everything. And all I can think about is you. Not because you can save me but because you are my life not in this lifetime.

Sputter.

Bull. Shit.

Choice. Traitor.

…Real… Feelings… Survive…The…Test… Of…Cars…And… Phones...

Dead. Battery.

There’s a dead phone in the head: Oh lovers. Oh friends. Oh fuckers. Oh boozers. Oh buggers. Have we learned the lesson of being in the phonebook?

The dead phone does not ask where you were when it was dying.

There’s the sun.

It says to the sunflower to take off those clothes. Be held close and alive by it. The sun sinks into the sunflower’s pores.

Too late motherfuckers. Too late. All dead. Ghosts haunted.

Alive. Happy. Sunflower.

Sunshine.