The Feet of God

4 - PERCHANCE TO DREAM

So there I was, dumped in the midst of nowhere in the middle of the night, standing all by myself, rubbing my hands together and breathing in the cold damp air, and I had me one of them strange premonitions I’d just escaped a trucker’s version of doing the honor farm fandango.

Standing alone in the darkness by I-5 off-ramp number 5150 erected in MCMLVI, I was soon overcome by exhaustion if not diesel fumes.  I yawned and stretched and heard my tired bones crack and creak.  A steady stream of trucks and cars whizzed by along the freeway above me.  No doubt a lot of important folks was rushing to important places for important reasons.  But down here in the darkness, no one was going nowhere fast.

I looked around and spotted a big piece of cardboard laid out near a ditch.  It appeared to be a discarded box about the size of a refrigerator.  I stood there for about a half hour or so, contemplating if I’d be willing to give ol’ Red another chance at my company or if I was go’n to spend the night here.  As the passing lights of the traffic illuminated a patch of ice plant all soft and inviting near the derelict piece of cardboard, I made my decision and skedaddled toward the spongy groundcover to my makeshift shelter.

I bent down and lifted the cardboard real slow so’s to check for hairy tarantulas, feral cats or any migrating laborers who might be hiding underneath.  Fortuitously, everything was clean and dry and all mine for the night.  I wrapped my providential bedding around me and cuddled tight in a warm and cozy ball.  It wasn’t no time before the whooshing lullaby of the passing traffic overhead had me dozing off.

Just as I teetered on the brink of blacking out a racket of airbrakes rudely brung me back to consciousness.  I lifted the cardboard just enough to sneak a peek.  Yup, it was ol’ Red all right.  He was slowing down, too.  My heart begun to pound, but I just laid real low and kept a firm grip on my cover.  The truck rolled on through without coming to a complete stop, and then I watched as Red’s taillights disappeared into the darkness.

I snuggled back down into my cardboard bed on the succulents with every intention of getting some more shuteye, but try as I might, I was now feelin’ restless and awake.  Well, like I always say, if you ain’t got beers and NyQuil™ shooters to pound down to help you pass out, ponder on some profound subject for a while.  Thinking real hard always makes me drowsy.

And life is full of such things that knock me out.  I can lay around and contemplate how huge the universe is for minutes at a time.  The expanding frontier of space-time and galaxies upon galaxies spiraling out forever and ever into an infinite emptiness.  It makes me feel safe and secure to find myself here on this tiny ball of mud hidden along the fringes of our own Milky Way...insignificant and transitory...a flash in the universal bedpan...stardust caught in a strong tailwind....

Zzzzzzzzz....

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