Night Drive

Nothing takes me back to my childhood quite as powerfully as long drives after dark—especially if it’s Saturday and the Country Gold is cranked up loud.

It was the only time I wasn’t afraid of watching the night sky. I would lay in the back seat, staring out the window at the stars, listening to the radio blast “Feed Jake” or “There Goes My Baby.” I wanted to know all the words to every song. I never wanted to get home, but somehow I always fell asleep just before we did.

I wonder if our boys will think back on night drives when they’re my age. If the world in that memory will shrink to the green glow from the dash, a black sky full of white stars or maybe rain, and favorite song after favorite song on the radio. If they’ll remember waking up as they’re carried inside and feeling sad that the music is over, but too comfortable in Mama or Daddy’s arms to complain.

Coping Mechanisms as Story Generators

Finding a story to tell has never been a problem for me. I attribute this to a coping mechanism I developed as a child. When I'm too hurt, scared, or angry to deal with what I'm feeling, I let my imagination wander off for a while. I put myself in the shoes of someone who can take a lot more punishment than I can, then I give them a completely different set of problems. Ignoring the psychological implications, that kind of escapism makes for a lot of fun stories.

The actual process goes something like this: Wake up in the middle of the night, scared to death? Imagine you live in a world where you're only awake at night and you're not scared.

Why is the world like that? Because after the revolution, dichotomous political parties came to power and the country has been in a tense power struggle ever since. At present, things are so divided that they've literally become night and day for the people aligned with the opposing parties.

Why are you, specifically, awake (and not scared) in the middle of the night? Because I'm a former child soldier who still takes contracts from the general who was my commanding officer during the revolution. The whole country can feel another war coming, and right now this second, I'm helping smuggle kids out of the country before the outbreak under cover of darkness.

Does your former CO know? No, he would want the kids around because if they're trained young enough, they become the most effective killers, like I did.

Then why are you doing it? Because the girl I love wants to protect as many kids as she can from turning out like we did.

This coping mechanism/method of calming myself down/story builder works for me because:
1. It has nothing I'm currently trying to avoid (monsters, nightmare stuff, etc.).
2. It pretends that one of my enemies (the dark in this case) is actually my friend.
3. It has all of the story elements I like (an unfamiliar world, danger, romance, and a main character who is a badass).

Is this a healthy way to deal? I don't know. All I know is it helps me go back to sleep and it's one of the reasons I never worry that I'll run out of stories to tell. Heck, I have a 10,000-story backlog from childhood to now, all I have to do is pick one.

Whether or not I'll be able to do those stories justice is a whole other post.