HIGHWAY TO HEAVEN

I am back to the yellow blinking lights again. Every day I pass them by foot, and yet I feel drawn to them every single day. I always thought the yellow blinking lights had a story to tell, like every star in the universe as told by Eliot in his poem. But the story I am expecting from this yellow light is different, for I believe they have witnessed every single accident on this lonely road. There is a broken sign board right next to me with a sign that says ‘Accident Prone Zone, Go Slow’ and I laugh at the irony. I laugh at the irony like my life which is also a joke.

I am sitting inside my car with the AC on at twenty three degree Celsius, the temperature I am in love with. My playlist is on shuffle and it is playing a random song I fell in love with many years back. I try to remember the song, but I am spaced out; and on the road where the accident took place. I am a floating balloon: not tethered to the ground but not strong enough to fly far, far away. I am still apologising to the person who rode shot gun with me on that strange night filled with music and laughter.

I check the time on the clock. 21:50pm. Five minutes before the time the accident took place. Thirteen hours and fifty four seconds after the ride started. Me looking for the serenity in the earth and she with a destination that she had in mind before she got stranded at a fuel station. No booze, no strings. Just few lame jokes, untold stories and happy music playing in the stereo; and a flickering streetlight at the end of the road that engulfed us and expelled us in the very next junction like a black hole kissing a white hole.

I never gave ride to the hitch-hikers, and that was my very first time; maybe even the very last. I was cleaning the dirt out of my glasses when she waved her hand and asked me to stop by just for a second, her car’s engine steaming with smoke. I offered her the shot-gun seat which was always unattended except for my usual backpack which I tossed in the trunk of the car. So we drove into the night, yelling lyrics out to the strange wind that played with our hair and our finger oh-so-fearlessly, giving us the promise that the night was ours and ours was the night.

Then, the corner of a street and a junction arrived, and all hell broke loose. Death granted me his power; and I was blinded by the sight of the yellow lights that I took it graciously and gifted him with the life of her. A beam passed by us, and us into the hood of a truck. Shocked, yelling yet calm because we knew nothing could happen and that this was all meant to be. The love of my life dented and crashed across a beast with the rope of death, and me with death’s loving hands. My love totalled on the road, and a stranger on the seat, eyes wide open and blood gushing out of her forehead and neck; and me spotless except for a slight scar that shall remain forever like the kiss of death.

21:55pm. The car had crashed, a stranger had died; and I had cried for all the tragic happenings. Helpless, I ran for help like a child lost in a supermarket. Mindless, like a junkie high on drugs. But nothing was never enough to please God, for he took everything from me. Patience, confidence, and the fear of death. The only thing I gained was the realisation that a stranger would mean so much to me, that a stranger could change so much of your life.

Tonight, I keep the danger lights on and stand under the streetlight where it all happened. Stay away, people; I am touched by the beautiful curse of Death, but the truth is no matter how much I try, I cannot die. Such is the love of Death, such is the game of Death.