Chrome Nights in Heavenly Hills

by Christina Murphy

Every town once had a place like this. A lover’s lane, overlooking a vista of city lights and bright stars. Perhaps there are mountains laced with streams or hillsides radiantly green. Perhaps it is winter or summer. It doesn’t matter. The music, sweet music, unites the moment. In the distance a car radio is playing songs of love lost. The notes move through the night like the wings of migratory birds, marking the paths of endless searches. Somewhere, someone must hear that song and remember the tender lies that made a love affair possible.

It is the era of large-finned cars sleek in the night, challenging the wind for speed and the stars for brilliance. Chrome, like a fierce and cold brightness in the hills, glittering in even the darkest of nights as the moon calls out to the stars: behold—nothing is lost. Chrome, like a phantom, haunting the hills—so right for songs of love lost and love found, of broken hearts and hearts just taking flight.

The heavenly hills with stars aflame made escape possible. It was a search for perfection—like the beauty of ocean to sky in azure light unbroken. The music could lift hearts as passion freed or broke them. The songs were seas in which hearts could swim to unknown shores—looking behind, waving to the past, seeing it all in one flash—chrome, brilliant like heaven, and love, soft as the nascent green of springtime hills. How many loves were found or lost in cars on hillsides as songs played the hopes and heartbreaks of life? Do you remember lover’s lane? Like Narcissus, in images of time’s creative making, can you see your own reflection in the chrome?