Flights

BENEDICTUS, QUI VENIT

April on the motorway, the sun’s red streaks across the asphalt, the world all delicately decorated with a glaze from the recent rain – an Easter cake. I’m driving on Good Friday, at dusk, from the Netherlands to Belgium – I don’t know which country I’m in now, since the border has vanished; unused, it’s been expunged. They’re playing a requiem on the radio. At the Benedictus, the lights come on along the motorway, as though reinforcing the blessing I’m getting involuntarily from the radio.

But in reality it could not have meant anything other than that I’d made it to Belgium, where, happily for travellers, all the motorways are well-lit.