On a damp patch of grass next to the Prodoville on-ramp, I took a deep breath and attempted to lay it on her. I wanted the perfect moment, and although this was not what I had in mind, the inside of my car under the overhang of trees on an idyllic street seemed too idealistic a hope. I had never sat on the side of of a swarming highway, so in that way I told myself it was perfect.
“You’re good at keeping secrets, right?” I said to her. She turned towards me, shielding her face from the noise of the cars. She said she was good at keeping secrets by nodding her head and opening and closing her mouth. She was soft-spoken so I just guessed. The clouds began moving the same speed as the cars, and the backdrop of sky was going through it's cycle of blue to black, with all the hues in between, with an about-face time of, say, 10 seconds.
“Here’s one for you: I love you.” An eighteen-wheeler, the driver apparently not checking his mirror, changed lanes causing a blurry Neon to attempt a full stop only to get rear ended by a Ford Explorer and, in turn caused a Mini-Cooper, this driver apparently not checking the view out of his windshield, to buoyantly bounce off the front of a Taurus and hover over our heads before ending in the branches of a fallen tree.
A look of alarm came across her face. I looked back at my car, parked on the shoulder at the start of the on ramp. The redwood, the size of which should have been daunting, was still crushing my roof. There was no reason to think that situation had changed. I was going to call triple A. She thought I already had and believed we were waiting for a tow truck. I asked her if she wanted to walk farther down the road or go into Prodoville to wait. She said yeah, I knew this because she stood up, and we headed down the road. She did not walk up the ramp, and it was then I realized she was walking away from me not with me. Every car on the highway was at a standstill, all driver-side doors ajar, and some people were walking along the medial strip. A migration of people started to join in, even old ladies.
I jogged and caught up with her. I asked her where she was going and if she knew which movie that was from. She stopped and looked at me with her eyebrows swooping towards her hairline. I asked her again, attempting to save face, "Come on, I know you know this. What movie was that from?" Lightning struck 10 cars simultaneously at different points on the highway. It started to hail, lightly, and the sky turned to steady dusk. Is what from a movie, she asked. She was talking louder now.
"What I said to you on the lawn. What movie is that from? It's a quote. I know you know this." I thought I had her. Her face relaxed and we continued walking down the road, the hail piercing our bodies, lightly. The road next to us cracked at the dotted yellow line and the cars fell into eachother in a stretching v. The people walking the medial strip were singing a song in spite of the world. The road gave way and every car vanished into the earth. The singing continued, their song reaching down into the depths.
I told her I would not give her the answer, and so in that way we walked down the road, away from the Prodoville exit. At the time, I believed her silence, besides the deafening susurration of singing, was a result of her attempt at answering my question. But in fact, she knew what I had said was not from a movie. Her reaction - getting up and walking away - was only to allow a smile to dawdle across her face. I did not know this then, but it was not long before she illumined my shy understanding. I could not yet understand the procession song. I desired to know the chorus.
As she held my hand the sky opened up like a zipper, the hail stopped, and a host of, I want to say, Pterodactyls were banished from the sky. I heard the faint makings of a familiar melody as the birdies sailed above our heads before circling back and perching upon every person's head along the medial. This was all very interesting.
I looked at her and then at our joined hands. I looked at her eyes as she told me she knew what I said was not from a movie. "I'd be heart broken if that was not how you felt. And maybe you don't feel that way. But I do. And I always have." Our grip got tighter and I felt the inside of my chest expand and accelerate. I moved her towards me. As we kissed the ground beneath us gave way and we descended into the claws of two swooping singing birdies. We were flying over the heads of the choir. We smiled at each other and began singing along with what we both knew all along.
Catching signals that sound in the dark,
I am listening to hear where you are,
I am listening to hear where you are.
