A Short Trip

He sat uncomfortably in his car, in traffic, in the rain. His back hurt from pulling a muscle earlier in the week and it twinged every time he moved a slight bit. He was driving to see his girlfriend of many on and off years. More off lately than on.
He sighed at that thought.
Digging into his cd holder, he pulls out a cheaply wrapped cigar, unwraps it, and pushes it between his lips to look for his lighter.
The light changes from red to green and while turning the corner,he lights his cigar.
A puff of smoke and a slightly rolled down window later, he's cruising on his way to the highway through the small cow town he lives in.
The rain is beating down on his windshield in a slow monotonous tone. Too slow to even turn on the wipers at their slowest level. That irritates the man.
"Why can't it rain just a bit more so I can turn the damn wipers on and leave them on?"
He looks out the window up at his God and peers out into the darkness.
"This ought to be a fun drive." He sighs again.
Traffic on that Friday night was just lovely. Trying not to get too irritated, he flips on the radio, blows a puff of smoke from his cheap cigar and sits back, grimacing at his aching back.
"I shoulda taken some aspirin, dammit." He mutters to himself.
The music blaring from the radio is Motorhead or some such band and is really grating on his nerves. As he hits the highway heading north, he pushes the seek button on the radio until the sweet sounds of public domain music pings in his ears.
That's classical music, if you were wondering.
The nicotine from the cigar is hitting his system and soothing his irritations enough to let him sit a little further down into the seat.
The cruise control is set at 65.
"Yea. Granny driving in the rain, at it's best." He chuckles to himself.
Silence.
As much silence as the car allows, with it's wearing tires, the radio station forgetting to put more music on, the rain, now landing more frequently on his windshield, and his own thoughts of his life.
The classical music comes back on with an apology from a soothing lady's voice.
"Technical difficulties" she says.
"Right. Probably getting shtupped in the cleaning closet..." The man laughs at his own thought.
He flicks his inch worth of cigar ash out of the slit in the window frame, takes another puff of the cigar, and blows the smoke out of his eyes so he can see.
The rain on the windshield is blurred by the wipers, like the memories and thoughts pushing their way into his mind.
The music had a way of forming pictures in his head as he listened, and smoked, and thought.
"How interesting that music does such a thing.", he thinks.
"One wonders if it invokes in others the same thing it invokes in one."
Horns start bleeting their tune as a dramatic flare in the music builds.
A pair of dashing pirates sword fighting on an old ship on a stormy sea, comes to mind.
The music calms.
So do his thoughts of swashbuckling.
The show ends for the lady with the soothing voice.
The next show starts. The host with the nasal voice, is annoying, but the man pays no attention.
Nasal boy is explaining the evenings entertainment he is about to play for the riveted listeners.
Up next, an opera by none other than Ludwig Von Beethoven. His only opera apparently, by the nasally done bio of it.
It's entitled, "Fideleo" and it was recorded in 1962 in London.
The olfactory description of the entire first act is now spelled out by the radio host.
"Get with the effin thing already. I'm interested. I'm interested."
The opera begins as the man realizes that he's only hit the brakes twice in forty five minutes. The traffic has lightened on the highway.
Lightning strikes west of him.
He blows smoke in that direction to obscure it, just to see what it would do.
It does nothing but drift out the window.
Noticing that his cigar is now only about three quarters of an inch long, he puts it out in his makeshift ashtray made from an old mint can.
A lady sings with a high pitched voice as the opera plays in the background.
She's singing in German.
"I thought opera's were done in Italian?" he questions.
"Duh. Beethoven." He says to himself.
As the rain beats down above him, his thoughts drift from childhood, to adulthood, to his son and how much he misses him. He picks his cell phone up and texts "BEETLE BUG!" to his son.
They always played that when they were in the car together. They were together at that very moment. His son was with him in the car when that thought passed through the man's mind. He was sure that he himself would be with his son (in spirit) when he received the text. He knew his son would laugh when he got it.
Beethoven's opera kept up in the background all the way to his destination.
The thoughts of loved ones and friends, stayed with the man.
Blurring together.
Just like the water on the windshield.
He hoped they would never be wiped out of his mind.