Reign

"'Apolitical' is not an ugly word."

-- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., in an Introduction to Thornton Wilder's The Ides of March

--

Finished Blood Meridian this morning. I fell asleep reading it, and as soon as I awoke, I had to get to it. There comes a point when a book just needs to be finished. Either it has dwelt on you for too long (or preyed on you), or you have just grown tired of looking past the current book at the other titles sitting sideways on the bookshelf like a group of close friends who weren't invited to the party; whatever the reason, it just has to be done.

For me, that point usually comes around sixty pages to the end. That's when I figure I've got an hour's worth of reading left, give or take. An hour is not too much to ask.

The book, of course, was worth it. The climactic gunfight is simple and brilliant, transported from the town to a dried up riverbed crowded with boulders, and the so called enemy is like a twisted reflection in the mirror. The judge's speech is the cynic's Bible, infused with Emerson and transcendental self-interest. The final four chapters, word-wise, are wondrous.

--

Today, rain came with an hour's harbinger of massive clouds. I had to cross the river. The car started and then the rain did, and it came down in clumps and dumps, spasmodic waterfall spray from an immense white ceiling.

White everywhere. As I ascended the bridge a bus came toward me and it probably didn't know it but it was straddling the middle yellow line. I missed it by a narrow margin. The water sloshed off the windshield with each wiper swipe, blades of rubber against Pyrex shield to make slices of sheets of water. White everywhere, I saw, looking east, looking west. Beyond the bridge I saw nothing but white. I wondered for a moment whether I would touch down on the other end in the city or in some abscessed fantasy world portaled here by the storm.

A pair of yellow lights blinking like astonished viper eyes appeared in the invisible wall, and the bridge ended and other colors returned.