Time

On the way home from Quebec to Ontario I picked up my sister in Montreal. I drove along highway 7 when we left, but after a while I had a feeling that I might be headed in the wrong direction. Night time made any landmarks difficult to see, so I pulled over into a gas station to have a look at the map. I regretted not borrowing the gps for the drive, especially after discovering that I had been driving in the strong direction along the north shore. Well, at least my sister couldn’t chastise me for my poor navigation, being asleep in the back of the car.

We hadn’t driven too far out of the way, but the thought of turning around and driving through the night convinced me to book a room at the gas station motel. I flipped through the music stations on the motel TV until I found a station playing all 80’s New Wave tunes. The TV screen displayed still graphics of the music playlist in bright digital colours of pink, green, and blue, rather than playing any music videos. I got bored and went for a walk through the motel parking lot.

Word got out that Queen Elizabeth had retired from regency and returned to civilian life. She apparently had no idea how to live as everything had always been done for her, so she spent excessive amounts of her own money keeping up a facsimile of her royal lifestyle. I came across the queen wandering around in the motel parking lot, wondering what to do with herself. She wore a cream-coloured diamond-encrusted channel suit. The large chunk of diamond on her pill-box hat glinted in the lights from above.

David Bowie’s song “Time” began playing in my head. I returned to my motel room to look for the album and play it for the queen. As I rifled through my records I began thinking about how once I’d found the album I’d have to play it on my turntable, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d dropped a needle on a record. The queen and the daughter/granddaughter accompanying her followed me into my room to admire my vinyl collection. I thought she might enjoy the 80’s Brit Pop still playing on the television.

I remembered that my sister was still asleep in the back of my car so I went out to find her, the Bowie song still playing in my head.