The cars roll slowly –bovinely, stupidly– along Massachusetts Avenue.
It’s not the cars’ fault, of course: I should have walked to my friend’s house but didn’t and here I am paying for my fuel indulgence. It’s four-thirty in the afternoon. This is Washington D.C. It will be Christmas in six days. The year will end in twelve more. Did I really expect to traverse Capitol Hill in less time?
________
I push the radio’s ON button. The Globe plays a song I haven’t heard in a while. I listen, and I’m suddenly transfixed.
It’s Cracker’s "Low" and it’s a song I’ve always liked but somehow been afraid to like after associating it with my first car accident ever– the hi-hats crashing around 1:51 into the song could have been choreographed in sync to the Toyota 4X4 barreling into the left side of my car, inches away from where I stared at it doing so, wordless and uncomprehending.
I was fine. The car, not so much. That happened a while back. No scars, until the song envelops me.
I see sad, naked trees. I see exhaust fumes and the last light of the day clinging stubbornly to this short winter’s day. The guitar distortion sounds like agony itself, being ripped away from the prying fingers of the sunset and it hurts somewhere near my tear ducts.
A bus rolls by.
Suddenly I realize I’m gripped by the panic that the song might end and I don’t want that to happen. I don’t want to hear the uniformly happy and vaguely yet harmlessly sexy DJ voice that can be heard in every radio station across the English-speaking American continent tell me anything. I don’t want the weather or traffic and I don’t want to win concert tickets: I want to be left alone with the sudden mourning for the dying of the light I’m experiencing.
But the song ends anyway. It really only has been four minutes and change, and not an existential eternity.
_________
The turning arrow turns green and I sit there, once again uncomprehending but somehow glad.
A car lets me pass. The street opens up and invites me to race, even just a little bit. My brain didn’t notice when the saccharine song followed by the angry song started playing, but suddenly the light looks lovely. And soon enough I’m home and I realized I had to write this.
Because.
Just because.
A Daily Dose of Zen Sarcasm! 
Fabulous…
I’ve never lived in a city, never had to deal with traffic other than rare visits to different cities…
I can’t believe you remember the song from your wreck…
Winter sounds a bit depressing there… It doesn’t get depressing here until, oh, say… Februrary, March….
I played Low on YouTube while reading your post and it made me feel your words as I imagine you experienced them (although I was sitting in front of my computer not the driver’s seat 🙂 Beautifully written Miss Meow. By the way, I just received your package from the Surprise Giveaway. It’s simply lovely, thank you. Your pretty little snowflake is now hanging merrily on my tree.
I was reading the title of your blog and trying to recall the song. I’ll confess, I had to read the blog to figure out who it was. Ahhhh!
I am also very impressed that you were able to recall the specific song playing during your wreck! I’ve had a couple, and I can’t tell you if the radio/CD player was even on – and I’m sure it probably was. Very interesting that it remained fixed in your memory like that!
Nicely done. It made me remember my first serious accident, almost thirty years ago. I don’t remember what was on the radio …