Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Highway of Dreams

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Left to right: Christopher and Nico at a train museum 

September 25th, 2013


When I drive my car on the highway, I like to get lost in my thoughts, while zoning out the cartoons that I can hear playing on my sons in-car DVD player. When I block out the sounds of cartoon characters, it becomes me and just the open road. I’m aware of the traffic around me at all times and I like to wonder what’s going on in those cars that pass my charcoal gray mini-van.

I look to my left, out my closed drivers window, as a red car goes speeding by. The white guy, alone in his car, passes me as if my speed of 70 miles per hour spped is practically standing still. I get enough glance of him to see his white long sleeve dress shirt and that he was wearing a tie that I could not make out the color of.

He seemed to be in a rush, but where? We were on a long stretch of highway with no exit insight. There were no major cities where we were headed, well, at least for another 89 miles. But he sped as if he had to get somewhere fast. I imagine he’s a businessman on his way to that next on coming city, for a convention. His life must be in a constant state of rush.  In his world, there must be no time to rest for the weary. Or he simply had no time to care for the well being of others.

I glance back towards the road watching the roadway dividing lines pass beside my car thinking about the stories they could tell if painted lines could talk, that is. The amount of road kill it has seen. The spilled human blood seeping into its concrete after the carnage of a wreck settled in. How the road leads to happiness for some, sadness for others. It is a highway that makes dreams but can also break the human spirit.

I glance through my side mirror and see another family van starting to pass me. The car is traveling not much faster than mine but his momentum carrying the heavy vehicle passed the side sliding doors that are locked and securely in place doing its job keeping my children safe.

The front wheels slowly evenly match my own tires. Their speed is slow enough for me to look in. A mother is on her laptop surfing the web, her significant other talking away. His hands were gesturing in the air, as if he could be conducting a symphony. The mini-van slides past mine and I peer into the back. I lock eyes with a child that is gazing out the window. No doubt tired of hearing the lecture from the man up front, most likely her dad. He lost her attention but he can’t see it. Only I can see the emptiness of her face as they pass me by.

I look out the top windshield as my car hurdles passed the highway signs that have the miles written advising the passenger cars of the nearest cities. I try to calculate how long it would take me to get to each one by using the time of day that is set on my in-car navigation screen. I quickly stop doing that realizing I had about another 2 hours of my own miles to dominate.

I glance up at my rearview mirror and see that my boys are engaged in their movie. They only look away to glance at each other as they laugh at whatever it is on the screen that was funny enough to make 2 toddlers shriek with laughter at the same time.

I then gaze beyond them to a car that is close to my bumper. It appears as if they were drafting my mini-van. A trick used in NASCAR that allows the opposing driver to conserve gas.  The young man then abruptly jolts his car in the other lane. His sports car, lean and mean, seems to laughs at my van with each press of the gas pedal.

The couple has their sunglasses on. Their faces have a cold demeanor and their skin is pale. They simultaneously look over at me as they pass by. A look of disgust appears on their face without rhyme or reason as they steadily move on by. I secretly hope there is a cop down the road to catch their speeding ass.

It’s not easy taking the road less traveled because many people have been down this road before. The miles rack up on their cars as they speed through life, safe in the cockpit of their car without a care in the world about whom they’re passing. And as they pass by me I know we will never see each other again, but I remember them. I remember their travels as I daydream on the highway of life. 


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Written on September 24th, 2013
Published on September 25th, 2013

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The Adventures of Captain Imperfecto/Born Again by Christopher P. Fusaro is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at christopherfusaro.blogspot.com.