There's a weird atmosphere permeating in the air this night. I can feel it sticking to me as I sweat with the windows rolled down, driving home from a night of cigars and booze at a friend's. Lightning flashes violently in the distance, always in the distance no matter how long I drive toward it. It's part of the backdrop, striking down hard on some poor neighborhoods I'll never reach, even if I continue driving all night.
There is no thunder rumbling along with these jagged slashes of light across the night fabric. Just silence. A calm, deafening tone on a warm, moist evening. It's been sweltering these past few days with heat indexes over 100 degrees. The humidity has been a killer, percolating the brains of the elderly to where that's what they'll only talk about these days, grumbling around town about this strange weather.
As those bright lights rip through the sky in the distance, like some laser show playing to a song I cannot hear, I can't help but feel myself sucked in by it all. That silence again. The darkness. The solitude of driving alone along country back roads. Where am I?
The Nation is in turmoil both politically and socially, but what else is new? Economically, we're struggling, even though our corporate benefactors and media programmers don't want to admit it. They instead choose to hide behind positively spun bullshit while our politicians argue with one another over a proposed debt ceiling raise.
Like we need to continue spending?
I've seen cars along the roadsides in McHenry and surrounding areas as of late, sitting there under that beating sun with "For Sale" signs taped across the windows. I see them along empty roads and hidden passages along drives only well-traveled residents know about. I find it strange because I've rarely seen them before, but as of late, they're becoming ever more common. Same with empty homes, and vacant commercial buildings and strip malls.
The world around me in this community is becoming a ghost town. People cannot afford to live here in this county, paying the high taxes demanded from them. They're losing their jobs, or suffering other losses in a world gone sour - one where the America ideology is a pipe dream in a distant land.
That deafening tone delivers a sucker punch as I drive onward, hitting home with this notion of impending failure and collapse, of doom and gloom of an ideal lost in desiccation wrought by big bankers and corporations. That pain surges to a crescendo as I mull this over, analyzing my own situation and realizing my college education and adherence to expectations was all for naught. There are no high-paying jobs, and there is very little work for me. I'm just another outcast with no connections. Little Red Riding Hood in the forest with no trails - only with a penis.
My fingers touch the nob of the radio and crank the music. Classic rock. Simple. Catchy. One can lose himself in it.
TURN UP THE VOLUME.
