Shooting Star #2

I hear that song and I'm back in the car again, driving south at night to oblivion, a nightmare in three acts, a cast of thousands. The highway is crowded but my car is the only one on it, transfixed by that song and its eerie swamp twang, the sighting of a heavenly event and how it connects the singer and me to everything that ever occurred or will happen, a refrain of such pain, such longing, self-reflection. The song ends and I play it again to revel in its moment, to set a place, hammer in a marker of this moment and others like it, to be a player in a great act of cowardice, confusion, retribution, of you, of me, of everything I might have accomplished.  I am forever hearing that perfect terrible melody.