Prayers Do Not Always Reach the One Prayed To Geraint Jonathan

Many a truer word was said, certainly, but, as unpalatable truths go, none less welcome. Or put another way: You prayed for it: You got it. Took no notice of the world’s oldest adage. Be careful what you. Etcetera.  Wishing’s one thing, praying’s quite another. You went for the latter. The result is your current predicament. Circumstances cannot be reversed, annoying as that is. No telling how a prayer turns out; most are lost in the void. But the consistency of your desperation accounted for something, I suppose. You were out of sorts. The car was due its MOT. The sheer Jimmy Dean of it all. Similar stretch of road, late afternoon, early autumn. You’d not been drinking, you were simply in a foul mood. The sun was in your face and you’d forgotten your shades. How often over the years had you forgotten your shades? Approximately never. Shades and you went back a long way. Just as you and juiced up transit vans went back a long way. Back in fact to those days with Mariella, dreams on your sleeves the pair of you, worlds to conquer, the glitz of showtime sure to follow. How did it go, that repartee? One of you’d say ‘See you at the movies’, the other would reply ‘Third row from the back’, both of you knowing of course that neither of you was destined to be a lowly pair of eyes looking up from the dark. That was for the punters. You’d be among those gazed at, ten times your own size, Mariella the Bonnie to your Clyde, you the Abelard to her Heloise. And Mariella seven years dead and you getting by on the doorman gig. What Mariella would have done with Lady Day in your Billie’s Lonely Sunday is for you to imagine, others to ignore or deride or otherwise befoul. How long had you longed to see your name in print, see your own eyes looking up at you from the glossies? Long time, and as I say consistency of desperation does have its currency – especially when coupled with undimmed rage or greatness unrecognized, a state of misery as fresh today as it was back in the sepia. You were not feeling well, and the acid-reflux was back. There’d been no call from your brother, and there’d been words the night before between you and the landlord, his tone ever more peremptory, yours a notch or two up from humble but soon plummeting to the reedily apologetic. Where was the man you were meant to be? There’s six-foot of you. When was it, do you think, you blinked?  A lot of bridge gone under the water. The day marked X. The glory that was yesterday, how small misery would be welcome. You had things, you know ‘things’, on your mind. What comes, be it good or ill, does so in battalions, that old fangle. The car was having problems. There was your tooth, and the clove oil it was taking to numb it. You’ll’ve heard such things are sent us. You took the highway smiling. I’ve seen that smile, the one that says fuck with me at your peril. You don’t mean it of course but not meaning it is not enough. And so, into view came Stupid Person Number One who failed to indicate before switching lanes. Soon enough Stupid Person Number Two slowed to a crawl and seconds later Stupid Person Number Three, a motorcyclist, gave you the finger. Persons, eh? The likes you’d have once called ‘worldlings’. Poor them. Poor you.

They say you must have seen him coming, fewer cars being on the road and the sun not so bright. Like you, he thrilled to motorized speed. Like you, he’ll now be imagined in those films he never got to make; but unlike you, he left behind him two films that were made, and fine they are too. There are shrines galore; prayers ping every minute. There are mock-ups of the mangled car, blotches of gore tastefully added, while the original vehicle itself is kept in safe storage, soon to feature in a ‘museospectacle’ whatever that is, but whatever it is, you’ll feature. Your name is on so many lips there’s no listing them. From shore to shore it echoes. The cartoons are not funny. Your face meanwhile is who you are. Generally the one face. Taken in the immediate hours following. The baseball cap obviously doesn’t help, but you were not in a mind to consider such things in the aftermath. As for his car having come “from nowhere”, that was unfortunate, given the length of straight road. Speed cameras caught the whole thing, and you’ll’ve surely heard guff about a CCTV movie being made. Ignore it. Ragpickers pick. What’ll be made of the non-existent “petrol haze” I couldn’t say. What’ll not be made of it is anything for which any man or woman might be forgiven. Top of the list: a coronary at the wheel. No such coronary event here. Not so much as a wasp through the window. Petrol haze simply doesn’t cut it. Besides which, even had the road surface shimmered like the tarmacs of Arabia, it would have explained nothing. But as it was there was no petrol haze, no shimmer, the ovens of summertime were long gone. And the poor old sun didn’t come into it. You were heading east. It was wonderful. Early autumn. The car was doing nicely. The tang of clove oil was not so unpleasant, and all that road in front. Imagine.

Geraint Jonathan

Image by Jiří Rotrekl from Pixabay A high speed view of a road leading into the dark