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Music – 2

It’s very boring. It’s also on guitar, and I definitely don’t enjoy his acoustic guitar songs as much as his other stuff. But I do enjoy how tender his singing is in this one, it’s very compelling to me.

Poetry – 2

It definitely has a level of abstraction that lends itself to poetry, but most of the lyrics are so basic that they could have been written by literally anyone.

Change – 1

The song is the same throughout.

Insight – 1

Not unique at all. No part of it moves me emotionally or psychologically.

Good – 2

I definitely like it more than his songs that I actively dislike, which is why this gets a 2.

Story

“I’m depressed. I’ve been depressed,” you tell me. You don’t face me when you say this. 

“I know.” 

I’m driving the car down the highway, and snow is piled high on either side of it. The road is white from what I assume is the salt. This early in the morning we’re one of the only cars out, and the sun is only now starting to come up over the trees. The whole world has a pale blue tint. This feels tonally fitting to what you just told me. Or, maybe, that’s what made you think of it. 

“I’m working on it,” you tell me.

“Why?”

“I want to get better.” 

This is a difficult conversation for me. I avoid looking over at you, staring intently at the white road ahead. I think you’re making your depression worse by not experiencing it. By wanting to fix it. By having a need to be active about it, but really running away from ever feeling it. Maybe I’m not the person to ask for advice. 

“It’s hard to fix something that you’re unwilling to experience,” I eventually say.

I spend a lot of time working on ‘feeling better,’ without ever actually getting to feel truly, deeply, thoroughly bad. 

The advice is really more for me than it is for you. 

We continue to drive without speaking for a while. It’s a difficult trip, and we still have very far to go. 

“Do you think it will be okay?” you ask. 

“Why wouldn’t it be? Either it will be okay, or it will pass.”

The pounding that is coming from the trunk is also making the conversation difficult to focus on. 

“Shut up!” I yell in its direction. The sound stops, temporarily. 

“I had a very strange dream a couple nights ago,” you continue. 

“Oh? What was it?” 

“I woke up alone on a cold spring day. My bedroom window was cracked from the night before, and I was freezing. The sun wasn’t up yet and the room was pitch black. I lifted my head up from the pillow, but couldn’t see past my chest. I had a very hard time getting up. When I finally managed to pull myself out of the bed, and my eyes slowly adjusted to the dark, I realized I wasn’t in my bedroom at all, I was somewhere I didn’t recognize. This caused me to feel very nervous. Quickly standing up, I stubbed my toe on something. It hurt like a bitch. And it quickly started to turn into a welt. Red, large, throbbing, hot. I mean really terrible. I tried holding it but it got too hot to hold. As I looked down at it, it started to form a sort of volcano, continuing to grow bigger and bigger before my eyes. Eventually it got so large and irritated that it erupted, but not outside my body, but into it. I could feel and see it, somehow. Inside of me, the lava shot up from my foot and filled my chest, burning me with the intensity of the heat. It filled me with warmth,  excitement, a deep passion, desire. The heat burned through my insides and I was consumed entirely by it. But it kept growing, spilling out of my mouth and my eyes, my nose, uncontrollably getting onto everything and everyone around me. I couldn’t keep it in. It was so bright, so unending. It was apparent to everyone, even from a great distance, what was happening to me. Some wanted to touch it, to get it on themselves, while others stayed as far away as they could. It didn’t matter, it still got on them. But, eventually, as with all volcanoes, the eruption died down, sputtered out. Turned to rock and soot and ash. I felt myself harden despite my best efforts to keep moving, to stay warm. When it went out, it covered me with the leftovers, hardening every inch of me. And just like one of those people in Pompeii, I became a frozen statue, laying back in bed like I had been when the dream started, in a pitch black room.” 

As you were telling me this story, the pounding in the trunk resumed. The road stretched ahead of us, the sun climbed higher, the day got brighter. I listened to your voice telling me your dream, the excitement, the nervous quality with which you spoke. The way you would hesitate before certain sentences. 

I let the story hang in the air for a while, accompanied of course by the thuds from the back. One could almost get used to them at this rate. I can tell it’s cold outside, even though the sun has gotten a lot brighter. The car has a barely functioning heating system. A barely functioning everything. It’s a miracle that it’s even currently going down the road. I guess we don’t have much farther to go. 

“What do you think it means?” I finally ask. 

“I have no idea.” 

“Well, how did it make you feel? That’s probably a good place to start.”

“I loved the volcano. I find myself craving it even now. But I left the dream scared.”

You’re looking out the window, wistfully lost in thought. I imagine that you’re picturing the volcano. We continue the journey in introspective silence. 

When we pull up to the lake shore I turn the engine off. The lake itself is completely frozen over, and everything is covered in several feet of snow. We get out of the car, standing on either side of it, and awkwardly change into our bathing suits. It’s horribly cold. I come over and give you a big hug. You walk onto the lake, over the frozen surface, all the way to the middle. I watch you, shivering. You start kicking at the ice under you, first with your feet, but then you get down on all fours and start pounding at it with your fists. Eventually, you break through, immediately falling under the surface. The last thing I see is your hand coming up through the hole, and waving goodbye. I wave back to you, quickly walk to the back of the car, open the trunk, and climb in.