The morning was cloudy
when we set out on a long drive,
just the two of us,
our car laden with much luggage
and a pile of dreams.
That was long ago,
the 'once upon a time'
of a distant era
when they shook hands and hugged
in farewell,
when they didn't wear
cloth masks that hid their fears.

Overcast skies turned,
as we drove on,
into blazing blinding horizons
bereft of clouds
and brown barren landscapes
bereft of green.
and we thought
we'd turn brown too--
we, our car, our tires,
our breath, our thoughts--
merging into all that
aridness.

But soon we drove into
winding hairpins,
up and up and up,
then down and down
into verdant vistas
where, whizzing past us,
were fat cows with big udders
and their happy calves
and paddies
and green leaves with their trees
and pregnant streams
and men and women
dreaming all their dreams
and we thought
we'd soon arrive.

Did i fall asleep at the wheel
or am i still in a dream?
Or was some spell broken
at the stroke of high noon
when dreams turn into nightmares?
Or did we time travel
into now, into here,
into this strange new era
where fear reigns
and masks rule?
where the only remnant
of our past is Death
and the pain of separation?

Maybe we'll wake up
and resume driving
maybe this is only some
resetting of Time,
some reboot to crush
a bug in the software
that charts all our maps.
Maybe we'll see again
the simple things we knew
back then,
when we knew
how to smile,
how to hug,
to love.

Meanwhile,
we stare.
at a rotating circle
that keeps saying
loading...
loading...
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