It's Still Life

25 of 27 Glintmere – The Hesitant Harmony of a Road Trip with My Sister

I. The Prelude
A road trip does not begin with music —
it begins with the space between music,
that heartbeat when the radio crackles
and neither of you reach to change it,
when Paul Simon’s voice is a third passenger
and the silence stops being lonely.

That’s when you’ll find Glintmere:
in the dashboard’s glow,
in the way your fingers almost sync
on the steering wheel’s cracked leather,
in the joke you both laugh at
but don’t examine
because the truth inside it
is too tender
to hold without gloves.

The first note is always accidental.
The second is always a dare.

II. The Detour
It smells like pine air freshener
masquerading as wilderness,
like the ghost of breakfast for dinner
and the promise of next exit,
like the sticky spice residue
of a conversation
that never quite happened
but somehow still sticks.

It’s the lyric you hum
but don’t finish—
the one that tastes like I miss you
dipped in irony
and served with a shrug.
It’s the way you glance
at the same billboard
and don’t mention
how badly you both needed
something to look at.

This is not avoidance.
This is translation—
the art of saying here
when you mean stay.

III. The Harmony
Sometimes, at a red light,
Glintmere flickers —
her knee bounces
to a rhythm you don’t recognise,
your pinky finger
brushing the gearshift
like it’s a hand
you’re not allowed to hold,
the way the chorus comes
and you both sing it wrong
on purpose.

But the light changes.
The wheels turn.
The moment passes.

The heart learns to speak
in mixed metaphors.
The road learns to hold
what the words cannot.

IV. The Flicker
Glintmere does not last.
It winks — blinks
a sunflare on chrome,
a shared smirk at a bad pun,
a Coke passed back and forth
without wiping the rim.

There is no grand confession.
No crescendo.
Only the quiet understanding
that some bridges
are built not of stone,
but … Over Troubled Water,
and it plays softly
enough to pretend
you’re not listening.

The last glint is always the sweetest:
you catch her smile
as she looks away.
No one admits it.
But the asphalt
remembers.

V. A Ghost’s Coda
It’s in cassette tapes left unwound,
in the hollow of a cupholder
where two straws crossed once,
in the way you hum a tune
you swear you don’t remember
learning together.

The ghost of us leans
into the passenger seat,
rolls down the window,
and lets the wind
carry what we won’t.

This is not an elegy.
This is the overture:
proof that even detours
can be sacred,
that even silence
can be choir.

Glintmere
is the colour left unnamed
by a woman who still remembers
how to harmonise with her ghost.