Gray as Hearth's Ashes

Drove through a cemetery sky the color of steel-wool this morning. And "through" is the exact word. On the Causeway bridge over Lake Pontchartrain in the rain, with the clouds sewn gray around you like a tattered shroud, you are part of the sky. And alone. Oh, there were other cars on the road with me. But they were separate coffins. Each one set apart. Each one isolated.

And on such a day, the radio played only sad songs. Bound within the car's frame with my thoughts, it was impossible to believe that the music came from elsewhere, from far away. It seemed to arise wholly out of the bubble of space I occupied, transmuted from the whine and hiss of the tires on wet cement, and from the metronomic swish of the wipers.

My mood deepened, darkened. Why at such times do you always remember the wrongs you've done? I tried to weigh my contributions this morning, subtracting the bills that others have paid because of me. I'm afraid I found the balance sheet wanting. I’m in the red.

I wonder sometimes if the world will end this way for me, and I’ll be left driving on into the rain, driving on forever on a bridge that goes nowhere. I imagine the other cars sliding away, one by one. I feel the sky closing in until my wheels turn only on wind. Do you think there will be a moment when the music stops and I am caught in a world of gray amber, left to listen to gathering silence?

Will I know it when it happens?