Elevating

When I find myself driving home alone in the night-time, I never want to go straight home. I’m driving and I find a station with rock music and I blast it, I mean, really blast it, and I think, Here I am, driving in a car with wheels that could take me to the far reaches of this earth. I have the power to go where ever I want. I can leave this life, change my name, make new friends, abandon everything. I don’t need any of this. And I keep on driving, the wheels keep on turning, the music is hurting my ears and I don’t care and it’s green after green and the dark houses with dark windows begin to stare at me as I drive by and I know I can’t escape this. I can’t escape these quiet houses and empty sidewalks. I am reminded of where I am and I despondently flip my left blinker on to make a U-turn. I turn the car around and head towards that next right turn, because that’s the street where a dark house with dark windows sits at the very top of a hill. That’s where I’m supposed to call “home.”

The cold wind forced me out of my car and to my front door in a matter of quick strides. In between the slamming of my car door and the fumbling for my house keys, I looked up at the January sky. So clear, so sharp. I thought. I immediately identified a few well-known constellations. For a moment, gazing at these glowing, flickering heavenly bodies, I wondered how long ago they had exploded and I no longer felt the cold.