Motorway Melancholy

Sometimes a song makes you recall something, sadly neglected from the past. The song in question wasn’t heard until years later but conjures up a feeling of something mostly forgotten and brings it back to the surface in a surprising amount of clarity.  unsurprisingly the dreamy feel of this song matched well with Twin Peaks in which it was featured last year.

The dark, mysterious qualities of the night and accompanying drowsiness of a passenger make for a fertile playground. Sat, staring at a frequently empty motorway, the gentle motion of your transport flowing smoothly like liquid between lanes, lulling you into flights of fancy.  The near silence, the faint sound of tyres rolling over road or background ambient music, all lead one to their own introspections.

Other solitary cars travelling to destinations important to them, sometimes appear, demanding stories are created for their occupants. Then as fleeting as this brush with another is, it becomes just another soul forgotten instantly, unconscious background layering to your musings. Then that one thing that holds the attention of your mind appears.

It’s that turning with all the implied adventure of the unknown or the almost totally hidden building secreted in darkness and lying tantalisingly back behind the tree line. The mystery is overwhelmingly intoxicating because of that single light left on in a warehouse or office.  The signs too poorly lit to be properly legible, yearn to be read. This singular beacon in its lonely magnificence begs as much speculation,as the tiny lanterns of light in the black sky.

Who inhabits these forgotten by night places? Do they see me travel and idly speculate on my reasons? to whom I am heading towards? Is that remoteness I see. keenly felt by them or do they have a good book to get lost in?  Heedless of those nocturnal travellers gliding by the may quest into Snæfell or imagine Shangri-La.

Those answers I am happy never to know, for if I find myself in such a position, I would almost certainly enjoy the solemnness of the night and lose myself in the muted rumbling of the road and its haunting mystery.  Of unknowable fellow human beings and those fascinating facets of lives and people whom I conjure up but will never know I exist.