by Ben White.
Prologue
I always thought
of my 1963 Chrysler Imperial
as a time machine –
a big icon of Americamobile
that had clung on to the Golden Age
of classic cars a little too long,
and it wasn’t the most economical
or ecological car,
but it did have
the nostalgic connection to the past –
the kind of connection
that America and Americans
thrive on;
fueled by 9-mile-a-gallon romance
and an odometer marking memory
looking out over the steering wheel,
and travelling along space,
time,
and open highways of wonder…
Three Soldiers
Three soldiers walking down the road know the feelings of seeing the earth explode with RPGs, IEDs, and a warm, gentle breeze of the desert – or in the fields where poppies pop and leadership can be fragged in the right moment for the right reasons just to initiate the shocked gasp after telling the truth without the pretentious effort of trying to make the dangers and pain rain down with romance and adventure or a censored story of a nurse in love with a patient deserting for the sake of sex…
So every trench that gets dug up next will shovel out the pleasantries of touch and feel with soft, surreal images of redcross blood, lice, and the uncertainty of being tooyoung in the tooold situation forgetting all the comforts of material…
And the Imperial cruised…
2020
It was the time of the virus; when the medical care system couldn’t keep up – didn’t have the capacity to handle a pandemic. Fingerpointing and criticisms were added to the disease to propel the country into emotional turmoil with fearpanic, denial, frustration, and stress – all dressed in ignorance…not stupidity; ignorance.
The notknowing complacency had precipitated onto a society that had, over time, been conditioned by comfort to be satisfied with the luxuries and privileges – the entitlements of an entitled way of life. And power and pride were guilty of perpetuating the expectations of continued satisfaction. But there’s a certain softness that comes with privilege; with luxury; with the notknowing – with the ignorance…not stupidity; ignorance.
And maybe my time behind the wheel of the Imperial was only adding to the complacency and denial as I drove through the darkrain – through time; through memory. Where and when, sometimes, the windshield wipers couldn’t keep up and the inside of the glass would fog over, so I would pull off to the side of the road beneath an underpass; waiting for the storm to stop…