Someone Somewhere in Summertime

I looked at the clock in the dash, 12:21, noticed the symmetry & wondered what you might be doing at that moment.  Were you tucked into your bed in Omaha?  Working the night shift in Florida?  Flickering in the light of your tv in Joplin?  Stopping for lunch while hiking through Bangkok?  Enjoying a late-night cigarette on your parents' deck in Oklahoma?
I was in the middle lane of a nearly deserted highway south of Kansas City.  Air from the window made the car smell like parched grass & dead leaves.  Red lights on a radio tower.  Listening to Simple Minds' New Gold Dream for the third or fourth time in twelve hours.  I had met BT for lunch at Genghis Khan, where I had a tasty Sugar Caramel Oolong, despite the heat.  She arrived looking lovely in a long sundress and blue beaded necklace.  Afterwards, we went to the World's Fairs exhibit at The Nelson.  It is smaller than you might expect, but when you pause to take in all the details, it quietly steals hours from your day.  Pan's head leering from the handle of a crystal wine jug, Hindu sea serpents in the armrests of a chair, an amazing Japanese screen half-covered by cold, stormy, iridescent waves of silk thread.  It was my second visit and I can't pick a favorite.
I'm convinced that highways change at night.  They hum in the dark.  Unfamiliar ramps appear under murky lights.  Cars with dark interiors take exits I don't notice until they're gone.  Sections stretch out until I start to think I'm on the wrong road.  Has that building always been there?  But I stay in the middle lane until I see my exit ahead.  I'm a Taoist driver.  Like Lao Tse Tung or Winnie the Pooh, if they had cars.