Here I am thinking back on the past seven years, how much I’ve changed in such a small amount of time. Wishing I could bring the two versions of myself together, work out a reconciliation, find a way to forgive myself and move on. The night had been a blast. Being back on stage, back with my old bandmates, back in a seedy bar with loose rules and looser women. But how long would it take for the old patterns to reemerge? I couldn’t afford to find out. I had just recently gotten to a place where I could even look at Rox without cringing. Where I could look in the mirror without averting my eyes. Nothing was worth giving that up now. Certainly not a night of blurry memories followed by a crushing hangover. No matter how much fun it might have been at the time. I felt like I’d passed some kind of test, and it felt good.

I glanced back down at the clock and it was still 12:00, making this the longest minute of my life. I thought maybe the clock had stopped, so I counted to sixty in my head and looked again. The glowing red digits remained at 12:00.

Fine, whatever. I started watching the yellow line bifurcating the road, the pulsing stripes ticking by like seconds. ‘Personal Jesus’ by Depeche Mode was just coming to an end on the radio. Caspian would have hated that one too, but I didn’t mind it. Better than ‘Coffin Dust’, that’s for sure.

The late-shift DJ spoke over the fading track, his voice soft and gravelly, like they’d just woken him up and stuck a mike under his nose.

“Welcome to The Midnight Hour. We’ve got a long night ahead of us, and it’s just getting started. It’s dark out tonight. Quiet. Half the world lost in the delirium of sleep while the other half toils away their sad, meaningless lives, counting down the days toward their inevitable death.”

I snorted laughter. Sounded like someone had gone off his Zoloft.

“And out there right now, a lone rider drives down an empty highway, listening. An old acquaintance sleeps beside him, snoring like little baby Jesus in His cradle made of hay.”

That was a little strange. I stiffened, and cocked my head. Looked down to see the clock still stuck at 12:00. The yellow hash marks flashed by.

The DJ chuckled, a deep, rattling grumble laced with lung plaque.

“That’s right, The Midnight Hour. Let’s get things started with our first guest of the evening. Get up close to that mike, there, and tell us your name.”

That chuckle again. Like a death rattle.

“Kevin,” the guest said. He sounded hesitant, scared.

“All right, yeah. So, Kevin, welcome to The Midnight Hour. Do you have any requests for us tonight?”