Charles Jensen | Writer

I drove through the dark, topping out at 90, nearly legal even then. Passing semis with a shudder. There was the hour I spent crawling through rush hour traffic listening to your songs, singing those words, thinking. In dreams the car represents the self, the body. Where we go in it is a portent. After a crash, we say, He hit me! although he did no such thing: he struck my vehicle, myself.

The space inside the car is psychically small and only allows a finite number of thoughts to exist. They were all of you.

I arrived, set up my little camp in the suite, tucked my clothes behind the blind, ate a brownie my mom packed along for me. Unloaded the stack of books and arranged them like a Doric column on the shelf: imposing and Greek. Hopefully not to be a tragedy. But you never know.

I need a store, like a Target—one place to sell white wine and shaving cream, although I may not shave the whole while I’m here. I need little else: I have it all here. And nightly, your voice arrives from the ghost world and tells me about tomorrow. I’ll be listening. There is no distance between us, not now.