Karthik

In the music video for REM's Everbody Hurts, the band members sit in one of many metal boxes lined up on a concrete road to nowhere. It's sweltering bumper-to-bumper traffic, the shared frustruation of a writhing mass of ants under the sun, but the band remains cool behind their shades and black suits.

In the other boxes, people are living their lives. Unhappy ones, disappointed ones, tired ones... no one wants to be there. They want to be at the horizon of the strange arid road; they can almost glimpse it but they know in their heart of hearts it's probably a mirage. Michael is one of them.

He's sitting in his baby blue 1977 Caprice, his right of passage as a middle manager, and he's being slowly burned alive. The gosh-darned air conditioner has broken for the second time this month and it doesn't help that he's on a freeway at a time when environmental awareness is only a dinner topic for hip parents. He's not a hip parent. He's not even a parent. There is no one else in his life. It's just him and his work.

Michael keeps chugging along. What else can he do? Going off-road would be suicide and it's not like any divine intervention is coming, either. He looks down at the watch his father gave him a couple Christmases ago. It's a piece that looks more expensive than it really is so it does its job. He sighs and then hears the sounds of kids wailing from a nearby hatchback, their faces squirming against the glass. "Help me!" He glances at the off-ramp. My, oh my, is it looking mighty appetizing. It's all become most unbearable when suddenly a god, no, four gods arrive, touching down on earth, opening their car doors and greeting Michael with the endlessly gentle strums of an instrument of heaven.

The music pours ice on the boiling water inside the pot on his head and to take it further, turns off the gas and closes the lid. Michael's mind has become a sensory deprivation chamber. He is now completely alone.

It's peaceful in Michael's little womb. He floats around the chaotic sea of thoughts, but he is not disturbed by them; he is rocked to rest. But wait a second. There's something in the distance. He sets sail for it, paddling little T-Rex arms to get there. In no time at all, he has reached. It's an island.

Michael stands tall on its sandy beach, eyeing each and every thing with an eagerness sorely lacking in his present life. Making his way to the lush, Lost-eque jungle at the end of the beach, he notices for the first time that impossibly high above him, looming through thick fog, is a mountain. He suddenly feels the irrational urge to scale it, so he does. In no time at all, Michael is at the summit; it's like a platform in the clouds. He tries to peer over to get a glimpse of the sea surely beneath him but he can't. Hovering just arms-length away from him is an orange crystaline orb. He plucks at it and is immediately consumed by a memory.

Light flashes over him and he finds himself back in his car. The light drapes come down. A drive-in movie theater materializes. He's surrounded by the same cars on the freeway, but they're all empty. He faces the screen. Something is about to play.

It's his eighth birthday, kid Michael is blowing candles at the table with his friends and family all around. He recognizes some familiar faces. He moved away last spring. She stopped talking to me two years ago. He looks back at himself. Big toothy grin on his face - you are, for one of the last times, completely in the moment, without a care in the world he realizes. The memory concludes. He is back on the mountain top but the orb is gone. It has been consumed.

Michael finds himself back at the beach drifting aimlessly. It is now sunset. He finds a seat to witness the spectacle and rests his bare feet on the sand. The only sound is the wind from the sea. The sea of thoughts. It's making the trees sway. He's not feeling much better - but he's not feeling much worse. The wind twists into a hazy but distinct whispering sound. It's beckoning him to the sea. Surrender to the mind it seems to say. A gull calls out in the distance. He pans up and sees it, barely a white blur, dashing to the horizon. In that moment, he realizes what he must do. Michael sets sail for the next island. And for the next island. And for the island after that. However many islands it takes to feel better. Only then is his voyage done. It takes a while but he finally finishes.

The song is over and Michael is finally home. He pulls into the driveway, gets out of the car, and fiddles with his keys. It's time to rest. Tomorrow never stops coming.

End.