Car home

It's the night after my mother took an overdose in her hotel room. She was taken to hospital and put on a drip. I'm sitting in the back of a cab home from work. The tall motorway lights pass amber bars over the cream pages of the book laid open on my lap. It's about a Pakistan general who died in a plane crash and the suggestion that mangoes may have caused it. In the car Roy Orbison is followed by Meatloaf and then The Beatles on the stereo. I can tell it's a cd as it keeps skipping. The driver sits with his left elbow resting on his knee. He continously runs his thumb over his nails looking for a sharp bit that he can pick at. His eyes dart around behind his horn-rimmed glasses and I notice a slight facial twitch. I can tell that the sports jacket he wears is too small for him as the sleeve stops a few inches short of the black leather wrist strap on his watch. My thoughts sigh.

Pic from http://autos.canada.com/greatcanadianroadtrip/index.html