I remember the moon all too well that night. A breathtaking view of that stellar splendor with just the right amount of cloud coverage. I start to see it in a different light though as I am brought back to the moment at hand. We are fighting. We are always fighting. Our marriage used to be like the picturesque moon above-breathtaking, peaceful, just a hint of cloud coverage. I now find myself in an down-right storm.
We are in the car, he’s driving of course because if he wasn’t it would be war over that as well. As we pull up to the stop sign I remember thinking that we don’t even know what we’re fighting about anymore. There is a cemetery to my right. Why do they always look more scary at night? This is the point that I realize we are lost. So the argument heads down that road while the car turns left.
Five minutes later I see the stop sign again. I slowly look to my right and sure enough there is the cemetery. I am so angry right now, does he not have any sense of stinking direction anymore? Does he want me to drive because surely I would have us where we needed to go in no time flat. He drives forward and I turn the music up, I’m done playing battleship for now.
It is funny how music can have such profound effects on people. I recall how the music seemed to soothe me, to rock me like a mother rocks her newborn and soon I am feeling ashamed of myself for hating my spouse so few moments ago. It seems like an entire song goes by with a commercial break including some weird siren whine, and we are creeping up on another stop sign. The hair raises on the back of my neck as I turn to see what I already know is there. The cemetery with her headstones and crypts. The music whining at me as if it were a soundtrack to my own personal horror film.
I lock my door. Why do I lock my door? My lock doesn’t have some kind of navigational device on it that will help us not be lost. I feel my husband tense up as he mumbles under his breath. I reach for his hand as he shifts the car and turns right this time, directly in front of the cemetery. I do not want to look but I do. It has a macabre feel to it and it is reaching out to me begging me to take a dance with death, dance to the danger signal that had become background noise. I have never been so scared in my life.
I am freaking out. Why can’t he find a way out of here, if I just close my eyes focus on the buzzing…..there’s the stop sign, the headstones, I am going crazy, it has been over an hour, we are still here. How did we get here? How do we get out of here? I am begging him, he is trying to console me. I want to drive, I tell him, but I cannot get out of the car I am so terrified. I am shaking. He steers the car left again.
I start to think about our children, Sam and his wife, they are going to have a baby soon. They have such a solid marriage. Oh how he must hate the fact that me and his father fight all the time. Maria, our baby girl, and her husband. A army wife, she had learned to spend many a night alone. I find myself hoping she is not alone right now. She will need someone there for her…
We are going in circles, how can this be when the streets form a square? This way and that way back tracking, the stop sign, the cemetery, the soundtrack to “The Twilight Zone” playing in my head. Another hour passes, the moon has not moved, neither have the clouds. I am not hungry, I do not have to go to the bathroom. The stop sign, the cemetery, the siren. I am going crazy that is the answer. I am not even really here, I am in a mental institution locked in my own room, strapped down to the bed, close your eyes, go to sleep….
But the siren rattles me, the stop sign. I don’t want to peek. I cannot do it, I do against my better judgment. She is whispering to me, purring, her voice and the siren blur together as we go past, only to pull up to the stop sign again. I am no longer mad at my husband, I know now we are losing our last battle. The stop sign is there, she is there, the cemetery is who she is. She is persistent. I am dancing with her. The sirens are droning on and I squeeze his hand as I succumb to my death knowing that I will spend eternity with him driving in circles on the square route that is the stop sign and the cemetery and the forever dance, and the full moon with just a hint of cloud cover.
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Obituary: SAMUELS. Charles A Samuels, 42, Brochesterville, MN, passed away Sunday August 11, 1976. Born in 1934, raised in MN. He was married and is survived by his 3 children and their families. Due to the nature of the death it will be a closed casket memorial with procession to follow at the Brochesterville Cemetery on Hunter Road at August 18 6:00 p.m. There will also be a special candle lighting service that will take place there at the intersection where the car accident occurred. In lieu of flowers a donation memorial fund has been set up to put a stoplight at that intersection.
Obituary: SAMUELS. Catherine J Samuels, 39, Brochesterville, MN, passed away alongside her husband Charles Sunday August 11, 1976. Born in 1937, she was raised in KS but moved to MN when she was married to her husband. She is survived by her 3 children and their families. Due to the nature of the death it will be a closed casket memorial with procession to follow at the Brochesterville Cemetery on Hunter Road August 18 at 6:00 p.m. There will also be a special candle lighting service that will take place there at the intersection where the car accident occurred. In lieu of flowers a donation memorial fund has been set up to put a stoplight at that intersection.