Night Journey

Night Journey

    We pass silently across the dark Mississippi hills. Crimson sunset falls across the trees. Cool piney air blows through the window. Silvery creeks curve off into the blackness with sandbanks pale yellow. Cars flow down hillsides, their headlights blinding me to the shadowy shoulder whizzing by.
     Making the night drive from Natchez we listen to new age music as that surreal Mississippi land sweeps by through the void that is at the heart of all, that emptiness that we minor characters in the great play of life pass through on our road to eternal bliss.  Occasionally I see a lost soul of the Mississippi night who, like a scarecrow, thumbs a ride to oblivion.  
     I sit comfortably in our vehicle creeping like a blind man through the darkness that we all know. I watch the lights pierce the darkness guiding us on our journey through the forgotten land.  This land is deserted by the poor masses in their never-ending search for happiness and cheap thrills.
      Native American flute music plays on the radio. The soothing, haunting melody suspends me in time. The road unfolds like a path to some sacred place. We bank and swing around the curves through the limitless void of darkness.
      She sits beside me speaking quietly of life, death, and rebirth. Her syllables flow melodiously from her lips. She is a river of wonder, passion, and love. She is hungry to know what lies out there beyond the veil.
     Her soft voice caresses my mind sending me to a place out of time. It is a celestial sphere of shining light where eternity stretches out limitless and majestic. Human reason cannot lead me into this mystery. She touches my hand with divine warmth. Like an angel of mercy, she leads me from the wilderness into myriad worlds.
     Soon we ascend the interstate like some ancient Greek God mounting Olympus. I gaze down at the world of Baton Rouge with its smoking refineries which appear as dragons breathing fire into the wet night air.
     We descend on the mighty rampart, the exit ramp, to the living breathing city and onto the street lined with stores, gas stations, and ephemera. The kaleidoscopic world dances by. Trillions of atoms vibrate in a chorus of wave patterns. City life buzzes to the fields of energy.
     We pass through the city oblivious to the lights of buildings as they shimmer in the night air. My thoughts escape the bounds of the city encompassing multitudes of worlds.
     Thousands of people trickle through the labyrinth of streets like corpuscles flowing through a maze of arteries. They move in a cybernetic organic body melded with circuitry.
     People sail through the mechanized hive of humanity like angels flying in formation through a celestial sphere. They are beyond care, fear, or pain, the apotheosis of humankind. We are children of the stars, divine but mortal.
     My heart flutters as the stream of humanity vanishes into the ethereal night. Their passage leaves traces, residues of energy in the arc of light emanating from the street lights. Ghosts, ectoplasms of the eternal, haunt the night. Life palpitates endlessly. The light flashes green.