The Sunlit City

They say all America looks for that sunlit city on the hill, where the sidewalk ends and the good life begins.

Perhaps there’s a hint of Mom’s apple pie in the air, malted milkshakes at the diner, the scent of coffee always on the brew; and that most delicate and fragile of things, the tinge of lost innocence in the air. Like seeing your first love as she was, before disappointment and disillusion changed her.

For some, Sunset Boulevard signals the end of dreams. It’s the last stop of the trolley car, the red light at the intersection, the look on the doctor’s face when he has to deliver terminal news.

And then again, sometimes not.

The message was thankfully clear.  The hopeful trust I’d carried for a year, across an ocean and over 3,000 miles of hard road, was about to be fulfilled.

A small thing was going to happen. Of no interest to most, of curiosity to some, perhaps a subject of speculation to others.

From somewhere I smell the scent of roses, and I think I hear Drusilla singing softly in the distance.

The bus drops me off at the end of Sunset. I look up and see, not the house on Candlewood Drive, but the homes way up in the Hollywood Hills, well lit by the sun. I find myself smiling.

I wait for a while. I no longer feel tired or weary. Those aches and pains are the province of other, older men; and I am young again, as I was before.

I see a face in the crowd, coming closer. It is familiar.

Oh dear Miss Landau, it is so good to see you!

 

James Christie

17th March 2010

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