Undone

It’s spring.  The sun is present.  I’m alive in its warmth.  I look up.  Through the sunroof, the sky radiates brilliant with sunshine.  I slowly close my eyes.  These light waves have traveled some 93 million miles to greet me.  How often I have wondered where they were in the afternoon of News Year Day, 2015...  

My girl is driving on a two-lane highway.  The temperature constricts. Clouds, the color of frozen steel temporarily form an impenetrable dome.  The great and mighty sunlight, after traveling the entire galaxy is somehow thwarted.  If present there would have been no ice. In its absence county-sized sheets of chaos appear.  Then an oncoming truck. 

 Sigh...

 The sun journeys 93 million miles… only to be stopped a mile or two short.    All my remaining years altered in a few short seconds.

A car honk reminds me the light is green.  I numbly accelerate trying to remember where I am or where I’m going.  It doesn’t matter.  I cannot form the answer to either question.  I turn into a quiet neighborhood and find the first place to safely park.  I lean back in my seat.  Three hot tears, in succession, follow a familiar path down my cheek. The tributaries merge into one simple expression of sorrow just off the left side of my chin.  Suspended there, the teardrop waits.  A few moments pass.  Gravity pulls.  I'm powerless to stop it.  It falls.  Now I’m doubled over.  A rush of escaping tears follows. 

Once again, I’m undone.