Cloud Bridge

She yawns in the passenger seat as he drives onto the highway in the early hours of the morning. He runs red lights, but she is too tired to argue with him. It’s still dark outside, and the traffic lanes are empty. The street signs blur past them until the car slows to a stop on the bridge that leads out of town. They sit in silence for a few minutes, just watching the windscreen. He gets out of the car first to look closely at the low cloud, all on its own and away from its pack, in the middle of the road. The hushed cold air makes the cumulus seem both alien and angelic. 

It’s only the two of them, alone, with an obscure haze that has a shadow. He tries to capture the anomaly on camera, but the lens cannot focus on the surreal white fog that hovers. She stretches her arms up to touch it, but the cloud’s instinctive reflex shifts itself higher, out of reach. They are in a Jeffrey Smart painting of almost forgotten moments. How many others have stood on this spot after midnight in the glow of mist and vapour? The distance between them starts to drift, so they get back in the car and drive over the bridge to the leafy hills and beyond.