Tail-Lights

In my dreams I still wear my wedding ring. Sometimes in my dreams, I realize that she's not supposed to be there, but it's a soft realization.

It's never a sad, crushing thing like in the movies where they get all weepy and say, "You're dead. I know when I wake up you'll still be dead."

It's never a post-modern metadream either where I say, "I know this is only a dream, so I'm going to enjoy myself and move on in the morning." She never tries to tell me to live my life and be happy.

It's more of a sad, loneliness that even the smell of her hair, the touch of her elbow can't crowd out like it always could when she was alive. They're wasted husks of happiness that no amount of scotch or sex can remedy, those dreams.

This one is no different.

We're sitting in my car, my new Corvette, which I never had when she was alive. I'm driving any number of directions at once and my turning is delayed like it sometimes is in my dreams. No other cars are around though, so I don't really feel any strong emotions about it. What I'm feeling is loneliness. She's smiling and talking to me. She says, "You're darker in the dark," and none of it makes any sense, but I don't notice.

I'm with her. We're riding around downtown together. I should be happy, but I'm not. I don't believe any of this, but it's not that I'm aware that I'm dreaming. It's more like everyday life where the things that make everyone else happy just don't do anything anymore.

She's a moving flame and I'm driving the car toward her like a moth, never breaching the radius of her glow, but she's right here beside me. That's how it feels. I can't really explain it any better than that. That's how everything feels now.

In my dream the top is down suddenly. She's smiling, her hair blowing in the wind. I can't see and there are dozens of cars screaming toward us. My brakes don't work, but the cars don't hit us. They all manage to hurl past us, and I'm thinking, "Is this the street race? I'm going the wrong way."

In my dream she's gone and I've forgotten that she was there.

In my dream I turn around and try to catch up to the other cars, but they're nothing but tail-lights and cheap perfume, and I never get any closer than this.