There are moments in your car when you are oblivious to disagreements. The air is heavy with contempt and rain clouds will soon ravage the city.
And yet there you are, humming along to shuffled songs, hands poised in percussion, the steering wheel a makeshift drum machine. This is a slow-moving boulevard and the window and I have become best friends made to endure silence.
I’m wiping away tears with the sleeve of my dress but you don’t notice, what with the humming-drumming-thumping integral to the chorus of non-chalance. Anything at all to avoid conversation. You’re not good at comforting people, you’ve admitted, and so I time my sobs with the rumbling of thunder so you don’t have to hear me destroy your song.
It’s not that I don’t know anything about music. I listen to the syncopation of rain, the arpeggio of truck horns and roaring bus engines. I understand the one-two rhythm of wipers and dissonant motorcycles roaring to life. And I accept the wordlessness of these moments. In this busy street of vehicles and visions, I must be the quietest one of all.
The traffic lights turn green but I don’t notice the difference between stop and go. What do you do in the middle of traffic when the chokepoints are in your throat and not on the road?
