Today's Undertaking

There have been other songs
From out these strings
But they came out wrong
Don't be mistaken

But this one comes from
High above

Yeah this one is dedicated to you
- M. Ward

I sit up straight in my chair, straighter than I ever have before. One inch to the right, one slight lean and the day grows a little darker with the pain in my side. Some girl is singing the 551st version of "Stars Fell On Alabama" on the internet radio station. The automatic door in front of my desk slides back and forth. The breeze of mid-day weird-winter-of-the-south flows up and around me. I close my eyes.

You were there. Walking beside me on an Autumn night. We kicked the stones to the side of the road, the seperated asphalt, the tumbled limbs, the leaves colored with warmth and brittle darkness. You turned a bit away, hands deep in the pockets of your coat and swung your face back toward me, long curls of your hair spilling over your face and your smile. It was time for us to turn this way, the friends we had become. We sauntered lane to lane talking of nothing in particular. It was just this aged Fall evening of my youth, framed by the quiet chords in my head.

"Miss?" I look up from my desk. A man stands there, holding a vase full of crimson tulips in his hands. His eyes crinkle half stars into the corners of his forehead. "That's what I'm looking for. A smile. I knew you had one in there somewhere. The lady upstairs didn't want these, so I brought 'em to you. Long as you keep smiling." He sits the square glass vase up on the granite countertop, winks, and walks his slow, weathered gait back to the flower delivery van. Just before he wrestles himself in the driver's side door, he tilts his grey head at me and waves.

not a problem

It's super okay, rolling over the days like this. The distortion from the Black Lips kills what quiet thoughts I had left. My head wags back and forth and as the pressure runs from side to side and settles in the back of my skull, I start to remember. I run to their car, jump inside, the tail lights bobbing as we pull away from the curb. We turn onto College Ave, up the street and on into the night.

On nights like this we'd drive through the country side, the flat dark backroads beyond St. Elmo, into the oil fields and pastures and woodlands. Shawn and Josh and little tiny me, laughing stifled teary laughs in the wind that flew through the broken sun roof of the El Dorado. The curves of the night, the gravel and broken pavement, the fresh green field-filled air, the genius of teenage invention. We spent the hours on the edge, the only edge I knew, this dangerous quick turn, my hands extended out the window, my eyes closed taking in every jolt, every rev-v-v-v of the tired engine, the night air whipping the long locks of my hair into my eyes and face. Shawn, from the passenger seat, nodded his head in time, his curly hair just hitting the shoulders of his flannel shirt. He turned up the stereo and Josh peered back at me in the rearview mirror and smiled. I sat in the middle of the back seat, hands steadying as we took another turn. I stared back at him through one eye and then the other, turning my head slightly with each small look. I leaned forward between the front seats, elbows pushing against the sides, my head resting on Josh's right shoulder. Shawn pulled a paper bag from beneath the seat, motioned for me to sit back, pulled out his lighter and lit a bottle rocket, flinging it out of the sun roof and into space, a POP resounding in the dark distance behind us. Josh leaned forward, the drumming hum of the car, the crushing sound of rock'n'roll through broken speakers pulling us out into the night and on into the future.