3AM Thoughts (16)

The ride back home seems to be taking longer. It is a hot day, the

excruciating summer heat having made everything covered in a mirage before me: the trees on our side, the road ahead of us, the buildings behind us.

The inside of the car is becoming more cramped from the heat and the silence. The silence – it feels like a moth flying in my mind,

trapped, beating its wings hard against my thoughts. I get all fidgety so before I hit that moth with my words, I turn on the radio and turn the volume. Sounds of Michael Jackson’s Billy Jean instantly fill the cramped inside and I feel the moth rest for a while in my head.

I notice his hands hold the wheel tighter, knuckles turning white.

Are you a Jackson fan? I ask him with some coolness in my voice. He is always intimidating.

Who isn’t? he replies laughingly.

Many people, you would be surprised to know. Not everyone has the same tastes in what they read and hear, I think inwardly. Diversity is the only constant in human nature. He looks on at the road, oblivious to the beating of the moth inside my head, up about and buzzing again.

Well, I am not a huge fan of his music nor do I dislike it. I simply

tend to keep an open mind towards good stuff out there, he explains.

Then, after a moment’s pause, he asks me if I think one can lose oneself in music.

That is how it is for the majority, I tell him.

Where do you fall under, majority or minority? his voice holds a bemused tone in it now.

I know how they say majority always wins and such…but in my experience, I have found the majority to be wrong on multiple occasions. It is very easy to be deceased by the norms set forth by Society and illusions crafted in your mind since you were a baby. You learn to outgrow them and you become a part of the minority.

So you choose the lesser, the path less traveled by, he clarifies my point.

Not less traveled by. Rather, the one never traveled by, I’d say.

Another reason you become one of the minority.

Is music one of those roads for you then? he asks me imploringly.

It is not my road but merely my sole companion on every road I travel upon. I do not lose myself in it. I find myself in it.

In the background of our shared space, Michael’s voice starts to drift away as another takes its place on the radio. The moth in my head finally gives up and settles down for the remainder of the ride back home. He shifts awkwardly in his seat, trickles of sweat dripping down his broad forehead. Perhaps his mother told him to be careful what he wished for and he did not obey. Or perhaps he is remembering his own Billy Jean, if he had any, that is. I will never know. Scary what smiles and glassy eyes can hide. Time ticks away in the drops of this summer heat and his presence by my side becomes intangible among the mirage of Reality around me.