Dear Car Man...

Dear Car Man, I recall nature documentaries in which early life forms project themselves across ancient oceans. A cluster of tentacles within a cone-shaped shell is approached by a predator and retracts inward, in a gesture of self-protection. I feel my body contract in tension when I wake up at five in the morning, as it braces for the metallic orchestra of death you unleash daily at dawn. I lay down on the mattress and my body tenses for impact - independent of my conscious will. I am like the sea mollusk, gathering inward in anticipation of the attack. When I used to be asleep at 7 AM, your Mustang hellfire invaded my audio sensory system, travelled down my spinal column and tensed me into a groggy awakening. This has trained my body to awake and to retract in anticipation of the assault. We live in a time of hatreds, and yet these are vague hatreds based on nothing substantial, on gaseous ideas. The frothing hatred we see beneath the dumb red hats are the fruits of manipulation...

  Dear Car Man, I put in earbuds to block the metallic clang show this morning and played Soundgarden, " Burden in My Hand " at considerable volume. It was the first time I didn't hear the clang show four weeks, maybe months.*  In the video, the members of Soundgarden walk among rising and falling dunes in some western desert. They encounter fences overcome by sand. They seem to be adjacent to the remains of some military installation. Chris sings: Follow me into the desert As thirsty as you are Crack a smile and cut your mouth And drown in alcohol 'Cause down below the truth is lying Beneath the river bed So quench yourself and drink the water That flows below her head *** * (Alas, no easy fixes: It irritated my left inner ear, which has some internal scarring after too much loud headphone music in my past).

  Dear Car Man,  We're heading into dark times, difficult times. Times of desiccated riverbeds and extinction. Boneyards and forgotten cities emerge from evaporated lakes. We are not prepared. I used to wish for a large scale awakening, but the conditions must be right for such a rare global event. I don't believe the conditions are right. They don't look to be. We head into a tunnel and we do not know what lies inside of the tunnel.

Dear Car Man, I woke up at 5:30 AM today. I was dreading the explosion that discharges from your Mustang daily at 7 AM. It always wakes me up, so my body has re-calibrated to awake in anticipation of it. I couldn't fall back asleep. I made some peanut butter and raspberry toast. I listened to a podcast about the origins of the deity who stars in the Old Testament. When your car released its exhaust sound and crescendoing, fluttering metallic pops,   I was in the back of the house in the kitchen. Today's Music for Dynamite Quartet managed to impress me, even after two years of hearing versions of it. The noise traveled from across the street, along the side of the house to face the kitchen window like a roaring flame of sound. It was as if the din had assumed a tactile form, even an identity. It felt like it possessed consciousness. Really! Its sonic shape felt alive and molded of condensed malice and rage.

 Dear Car Man, It's late. I'm tired. How are you?