Midnight Blue

Part I:

It seemed like a plausible idea, to cross the Fox River before the storm came South.

The clouds, heavy, rolling from the horizon, dense and forbidding. Sitting in the passenger seat, I unconsciously felt the seat belt confine me, a unusual thought I quickly dismissed. Voices coming from the muffled radio gave the weather report, but the report didn't need to confirm what I knew was coming our way; my boss uttered, “We'll cross the river before the storm hits,” as he drove the SUV-like vehicle. I objected with disdain, but was overruled by my boss, which was strange, as I would stick to the ground at my observance or jump out the rolling vehicle when no compromise was to be reached.

Instead, I focus on the taillights in front of me, a driver in an another SUV, which believes he could make it before the storm unleashed its being. SUV drivers must all believe they are above mother nature, as the worse the weather becomes, the greater the risk is taken; they prowl on dry pavement snarling traffic and rumble through snow without a second thought. The SUV driver in front of us, with the bright brake lights warning us, must see the same sight in front of him from another vehicle; we must all believe the person in front of us will give us enough warning of danger, but the thinking is what dooms sheep into walking over a cliff.

The bright amber from the taillights were extinguished the same time the horizon disappeared taking away the vehicle. The dream-like fog descended from the heavens to ensnare those the defied its wrath. I watch as the fog gives away to a force; the windshield shatters and the mighty river embraces, my body wants to embrace back and to float with no constraints in the strange beauty of the water. I observe how quickly the metal cocoon I was strapped safely and snugly was turned inside out; where once the sun shone its rays into bountiful colors, I only saw a green world.

I was in a deathtrap, a test tube, held against my natural state of unbridled freedom. Before thinking of opening the passenger door to escape, in a state of unusual calmness I noticed how the water completely isolates; I had no second thought of my boss, I didn't remember to find what happened to the driver of the taillights or any other drivers ahead. That's the last observation I made before I blacked out. Or it was the last observation before I awoke. I'm not exactly sure which scenario occurred.

There was a brief and vivid awareness as I awoke. I didn't recall falling back asleep, but the next moment I was safely across the river, roaring without uneasiness under the midnight blue night sky.

There was a majestic sound of the river while the pinpoints of the sky lit like a happy child, and yet, I will be hard pressed in remembering how the sound consumed my thoughts. I can't recall the sound when the windshield shatters into harmless marbles. I can't recall the sound of being submerged. I can't recall the sound at the point I didn't think of the others. Its the absence of the sound that keeps bothering me, its as if I never emerged from the water.

I thought I should call someone, anyone, to say I was okay, but my phone was wet and turned off. While I didn't end up calling anyone, I kept receiving calls as if nothing out of the ordinary was taking place.

There were shallow clouds against the backdrop of a pale moon that night, like translucent lifeforms. No, like a benign river, they move without showing their progress, and they circle forward, backwards, up and down without a beginning or an end.

Part II:

Sky blue, royal blue and powder blue are beautiful colors in their own right but none of those reveal the essence as Midnight Blue. It knows how to balance its optimism and its other-worldly presence to fit within the parameters of the other colors. Yet, it, if it could have human emotions, would strangely feel out of place; a Crayola naked with no easy name to define its place.

The darker tint is in character, ingrained deeply to its core, quietly showing the brighter hues the futility of fake smiles. It never shouts, "Look at me," but leaves a mark tingling with a happy sorrow. Happy sorrow: the two words are usually marked as polar opposite, like heavyset book-ends, but Midnight Blue shows otherwise. We can be happy with our sorrow and have sorrow when we feel too happy; live with the moment and be uncomfortable with stagnation that is mistakenly thought as contentment. If both are just a state and not a goal, then they are not mutual exclusive, but partners in the same human chemical reaction. Midnight blue, it makes its mark with quiet confidence and no marks of pretentiousness.

After all, Midnight Blue is the color of the sky during nightfall - the stars poke their distant light through the tapestry of Earth's blanket. It's the color of the ocean far removed from the safe shores - dark and brooding and all so beautiful; hiding rainbow of lights of undiscovered life and Earth's evolving crust. In the richness of these two, we can glimpse the deepness of the color and revel in how it encompasses all into boundless arms – sometimes strangling and other times liberating.

There is no craving of love or adoration but a simple acknowledgment of its existence.

Copyright 2008 dhruv panchal