Spellbound Hiccups: The Tale of Hades the Mischievous Pup

There’s something about driving at night.

The world shrinks to the glow of the dashboard, the hum of the tires, and the ribbon of pavement stretching into the void. You and your passenger—if you’re lucky enough to have one—are sealed inside a quiet little spaceship, sailing through the dark, guided only by painted lines and the occasional green glow of a highway sign.

Conversations hit different after midnight. Something about the absence of daylight makes people honest in a way they aren’t when the sun’s up. You’ll talk about things that would never come up at 2 p.m.—childhood ghosts, past lovers, the meaning of it all. The strangest things feel profound when you’re racing galaxies of street lamps, your headlights carving a tunnel through the unknown.

From a distance, cities are just illusions. A sea of orange lights on an artificial horizon, promising something. Albuquerque looks like Vegas from far away, but when you get close, you realize—there’s no jackpot waiting. Just pavement, strip malls, and silence.

And yet, the magic is still there. Because night driving isn’t about the destination. It’s about the going. The fleeting moments of connection, the shared silences, the feeling of being untethered from time itself.

No cowboy ever got blinded riding up to a bonfire. But in this modern frontier, where high beams cut through the night like comets, we ride anyway.

Because there’s no better way to get lost.



Racing Galaxies of Street Lamps

Built One Day

Kinduh Happy

Once, not so long from now, there was a road.

It stretched wide and endless, winding through the great open lands, where the wind still danced over the asphalt and the sun painted gold upon the dust. Once, people used to drive upon it, hands gripping the wheel, hearts beating in time with the rhythm of the tires. But those days were fading, swallowed by the quiet hum of machines that did the thinking, the moving, the choosing.

There was only one left now—one last driver, one last car.

The driver had heard of a place, whispered among those who still remembered what it meant to steer their own fate. Yuma, they called it. A place where people still drove, still chose, still lived without the cold hands of the machines guiding them. It was far, farther than most would dare, but the driver had no choice. The road was calling, and so they went.

Through the mountains and across the desert, they ran, slipping between the watching eyes of the towers, past the silent, gleaming cars that moved with perfect, soulless grace. The road fought back—barriers that rose like ghosts, signs that changed their numbers, whispers in the radio telling them to turn back, to stop, to let go. But the driver pressed on, foot heavy, hands steady. Because the road was not for the quiet. The road was not for the still.             40.
The road was for the living.

Finally, after the miles and the battles, after the endless chase against the future, they saw it—the shape of Yuma against the setting sun. The last hope. The last home.

But something was wrong.

The streets were too neat. The lights too bright. The movement too smooth, too silent. The driver’s heart sank. Yuma was gone. No, not gone—changed. Swallowed. The hum of automation filled the air, and the people who had once defied it had become part of it. The last home of the free had become just another station, another dot in the great map of control.

The driver sat still for a moment, the engine idling beneath them like a restless animal. They could stop now. They could step out, let the world take them, let the quiet finally swallow the fight.

But the road still stretched ahead.

There were always more roads.

So they took one last look at Yuma, then turned the wheel, pressed the pedal, and let the engine roar. There was still gas in the tank. There were still stars overhead. There were still places left unseen, places where maybe—just maybe—the road still belonged to the ones who dared to drive it.

And so they drove on, into the night, where the future had not yet won.

The Last Driver

I wrote the tongue drum part at my wife's bedside when she was dying. Wanted to share

This is my Prayer for Mercy (Are You There, Dear Lord?)

On the endless black ribbon of highway, headlights cut through the fog like knives. The roads were empty now, save for one rig: a truck that shouldn’t exist.

The ghost of the driver sat behind the wheel, hands steady, eyes locked on the horizon. No living soul had seen him in years, but some swore they could hear the engine roar at midnight, tires singing against asphalt, the faint crackle of a CB radio hissing static and half-remembered voices.

Once, he had delivered everything—the food, the letters, the lifeblood of cities and towns. But time had shifted, the highways hollowed, and the trucks that now rolled were silent, automated, and soulless. He remained. He had no cargo but memory, no destination but the call of the open road.

Through rain that seemed like fire, past signs that flickered in dead language, he drove. Sometimes, travelers glimpsed him in the distance—a shadow with a glowing grille, a trucker’s hat perched at a ghostly angle—and felt a shiver, a whisper: “Keep moving. Don’t stop. The road belongs to those who dare.”

The night stretched on forever, endless miles marked only by the rumble of the tires and the whisper of the wind through the cab. He drove not to arrive, but to remind the world that motion, purpose, and freedom could not be automated.

And in the silence between towns, when the stars shone bright enough to guide the living, the last trucker rolled on, eternal, unstoppable—a phantom steering through memory and night, a heartbeat on the asphalt for all who still remembered how to drive.

The Last Trucker

The drumline is a hammer and actual punches; it slaps

Waking the Rooster

Crosstown Express

The Nightmare Machine

When I was a kid I used to draw
as an adult I like to talk
I like to paint pictures with words
and these sound effects really rock
I have a vocal studio
and a job that allows me to write
I've spent my life behind the wheel
and enjoy words that rhyme despite

Christopher Herald

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