(How I wish I was, homeward bound....)
[Folly] starts with the gardens -- the garlic and avocados and orange trees
and artichokes -- and not just the sights but the smells as well, sweet
and sharp and tang and mellow, ocean-salt and fields left fallow, citrus
and spice and the produce of home -- as it grows by the road near the
ocean by the truckload, all along the road to Texorami.
And then the sun -- the size, the brightness, shining its lightness in
golden-and-whiteness to dapple the ocean like diamonds in motion with
sunset rays that pierce the haze to set ablaze the winding ways to
Texorami.
A beacon, a lighthouse -- it pierces the twilight like knives through a
skylight, the dance of its beams like a thing out of dreams, like a
fairy-fire sweeping the earth like a living thing, keeping just out of
their berth like a living thing, hiding just out of their sight 'til it
reappears, lighting the night with an eerie delight as they glide the
seaside ride to Texorami.
And always, always, the sound of the surf as it's pounding the turf in an
endless dance all along the expanse of the road to Texorami.
And now the road, the petrol bass, expanding, crescendoing, changing its
pace, it merges and grows like a surge from below to emerge in a rise
toward the night-pink skies, and the lanes full of cars sweep along
toward the stars...'til they all crest the hill and are awed by the thrill of the sight
of the city, a jewel in the night shining brighter than light from the
stars and the moon...
(Folly takes a few deep breaths as she blinks at the sight in front of
them. She is exhausted, and almost out of voice -- but she smiles with
pure joy as their headlights sweep past a little green marker:
Texorami... 15. "...And you can follow the signs from here," she says,
beaming.)
...and there endeth the tune of the road to Texorami.
